BUSINESS BEFORE QUESTIONS

Manchester City Council Bill [ Lords] and Bournemouth Borough Council Bill [ Lords]

Motion made, and Question (15 January) again proposed,
	That the promoters of the Manchester City Council Bill [ Lords] and Bournemouth Borough Council Bill [ Lords], which were originally introduced in the House of Lords in Session 2006-07 on 22 January 2007, should have leave to proceed with the Bills in the current Session according to the provisions of Standing Order 188B (Revival of bills).—( The Second Deputy  Chairman of Ways and Means .)
	Hon. Members: Object.
	 The debate stood adjourned; to be resumed on Thursday 12 February.

Canterbury City Council Bill, Leeds City Council Bill, Nottingham City Council Bill and Reading Borough Council Bill

Motion made, and Question (15 January) again proposed,
	That the promoters of the Canterbury City Council Bill, Leeds City Council Bill, Nottingham City Council Bill and Reading Borough Council Bill, which were originally introduced in this House in Session 2007-08 on 22 January 2008, may have leave to proceed with the Bills in the current Session according to the provisions of Standing Order 188B (Revival of bills).—( The Second Deputy  Chairman of Ways and Means .)
	Hon. Members: Object.
	 The debate stood adjourned; to be resumed on Thursday 12 February.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

BUSINESS, ENTERPRISE AND REGULATORY REFORM

The Minister of State was asked—

Enterprise Finance Guarantee Scheme

Andrew Pelling: What percentage of the amount of loans guaranteed under the Government's enterprise finance guarantee scheme as applied to businesses with an annual turnover of £25 million or less he estimates will be granted to businesses with an annual turnover between £20 million and £25 million in the next 12 months.

Ian Pearson: The enterprise finance guarantee, launched on 14 January, is open to businesses with a turnover of up to £25 million. It is too early to predict how many loans will be made under the guarantee to firms with a turnover between £20 million and £25 million.

Andrew Pelling: Initial experience in my constituency suggests that we are encountering a problem that often arises when any public policy limit is set. That is, economies of scale mean that banks are very keen to serve businesses with a turnover of between £20 million and £25 million. If that turns out to be a general trend across the country, what can be done to ensure that businesses with a smaller turnover will also benefit from this policy initiative?

Ian Pearson: We want all businesses with a turnover of up to £25 million to benefit from the Government's enterprise finance guarantee and the other schemes and bank lending that are available. Under the enterprise finance guarantee, companies will be able to borrow anything from £1,000 to £1 million. There are generous repayment terms, and loans can be repaid over up to 10 years. The hon. Gentleman may be aware that only today RBS-NatWest has announced £3 billion in extra funding for small and medium-sized enterprises through new regional funds. Significant support packages are available now, which can be accessed though Business Link. The Government are providing real help for business now, and that is what the business community needs to help it through these difficult times.

David Taylor: I know that small and medium-sized businesses in North-West Leicestershire will welcome the launch of the enterprise finance guarantee. However, my constituent Mr. Evans, who has also read the helpful document "Real Help Now", says that he has been left totally confused. He said:
	"My bank (HBOS) has told me they are still in the dark about the government's plans and have asked me for yet another business plan and projections (I submitted these only in November)."
	How confident is the Minister that individual branches of the banks will be informed about the Government's proposals as rapidly as possible? It does not seem that the information is necessarily percolating down from the top levels of those organisations.

Ian Pearson: Nineteen banks and financial institutions are already participating in the enterprise finance guarantee, so I would be surprised if lending managers at national and regional levels are not aware of the scheme and of what is on offer. The scheme was launched on 14 January, so it is still relatively new, and I know that the banks are looking at their communication strategies to make sure that the information is available at the lending level. The scheme is clear, it is open for business and doing business now, and it comes on top of the other lending that is also available in the economy. If my hon. Friend gives me the details of the specific problem that his constituent faces, I shall make sure that it is investigated.

Peter Luff: Can the Minister say to what extent today's very welcome announcement from RBS-NatWest depends on the enterprise finance guarantee scheme? I share the reservations expressed by the hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor). The Forum of Private Business says that the scheme is not working effectively and that bank managers do not know about it. In my constituency I have a very worrying case in which a man has been made ineligible for the scheme by the arbitrary behaviour of another bank. There are real questions about the scheme that need to be addressed urgently.

Ian Pearson: We will investigate any problems that the hon. Gentleman says have been encountered, but I ask him to bear in mind the fact that the scheme was launched on 14 January. It is open for business now and is providing real support. There may be some teething problems at an individual banking level, but that might be expected with any scheme. Some companies will be turned down because they do not meet the criteria, but the business community as a whole has welcomed the flexibility to get a loan of between £1,000 and £1 million, with a 75 per cent. Government guarantee. I am surprised by the hon. Gentleman's comments about the Federation of Small Businesses; we are happy to work with it to make sure that the scheme is effective. It is properly designed, and it is open for business. It should be welcomed by the Opposition, as it provides support for the business community.

Anne Begg: In his reply to my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor), the Minister said that the scheme came on top of the finance already available—but does the Minister think that the banks are playing ball? A small business—well, it is not actually that small—contacted me: RBS has found any excuse to restructure its loan, and has charged it 1 per cent. for doing so. It is a profitable business that is looking to expand, but it finds it very difficult to get what would, in normal circumstances, be classed as normal finance. It feels that it is being taken for a ride by the bank.

Ian Pearson: Obviously, I cannot comment on those individual circumstances. On the general situation, hon. Members will be aware that through the lending panel, we are monitoring lending by the major banks extremely closely. A lot of lending into the banking system by foreign banks has disappeared, so there is a credit crunch affecting the UK economy. Our major banks are continuing to lend, and we continue to push them to make sure that they do, which is why I welcome the announcement by RBS-NatWest today. Obviously, we expect normal commercial loans to have been exhausted as a possibility before companies are eligible for schemes such as the enterprise finance guarantee scheme; that is the right thing to do when providing a taxpayers' guarantee. The schemes are up and running. They are working, and they are providing real help for business now.

Lorely Burt: Is the Minister aware of an unintended consequence for leasing and asset finance companies that results from subsuming the small firms loan guarantee scheme within the enterprise finance guarantee loan scheme? As only six banks are offering the guarantees, such companies are no longer able to offer bank loan guarantees to their customers. Will he look into widening the availability of the scheme to leasing and asset finance companies?

Ian Pearson: More than six banks are offering the scheme. If the hon. Lady contacts me with specific details about finance and leasing companies, I shall be happy to consider them. We have made initial deals with banks to offer the enterprise finance guarantee, and we have brought on board more lending institutions, so the problem that she mentions may already have been solved, but I am happy to look at the detail.

Kenneth Clarke: When Lord Mandelson announced the scheme, he said that it was "going live today", and the Minister has just said that it is open for business—but does he not realise that he is lucky if he has found a small business that is aware of the existence of the scheme, and very lucky if he has found a bank that believes that it is operating the scheme at local level? Instead of producing a series of measures in a panic-stricken way, as the Government have done in recent months, would it not have been better if they had speedily adopted our policy of a £50 billion loan guarantee scheme for businesses of all sizes, and had shown some competence in getting it into practice at the speed required?

Ian Pearson: No, it would not have been a good idea to implement an uncosted, untargeted scheme. What the Government have done is to introduce the enterprise finance guarantee, which is specifically targeted at companies with a turnover of up to £25 million. The right hon. and learned Gentleman will be aware of the working capital scheme that we are also introducing. It will provide working capital support for businesses in the economy. That will apply to a portfolio of companies with a turnover of up to £500 million. That is real support for business, and it is working. We need to do more to market existing products to the business community. I would like to think that the right hon. and learned Gentleman and I shared an interest in wanting to do that, and in wanting to get the maximum possible publicity for the real support available to companies to help them through the recession.

John Thurso: The Minister has heard from Members in all parts of the House about the concern that banks are failing to provide help for SMEs. Is he really satisfied that the banks have taken on board their duties to help put the scheme into action? All Members have heard evidence from companies: banks have failed to advise them of the scheme, and failed to help them to access it—and those are the very banks that the country now largely owns. When will the Government make the banks undertake what is necessary to make sure that the schemes actually work for small and medium-sized enterprises?

Ian Pearson: The hon. Gentleman has heard about the RBS-NatWest scheme that has been announced today, and he will be aware of schemes that were announced before Christmas, through which the major banks are continuing to provide finance to small and medium-sized businesses. He also ought to know what we have done as a Government, moving from the small firms loan guarantee scheme, which was a very small scheme targeted at fairly marginal businesses with a turnover of up to £5.6 million, to the enterprise finance guarantee, which takes all companies with a turnover of up to £25 million and provides far bigger and more flexible loans. We need to make sure that that information gets out and is used by companies that want to have discussions with their banks. I know of many cases in my constituency where companies are aware of the scheme and are talking to their banks. I expect that the lending figures for companies participating in the enterprise finance guarantee will quickly start to build strongly. After just over two weeks, we think a good start has been made and we expect to see significant progress in the use of the scheme in the future.

UK Workers

John Robertson: If he will take steps at EU level to secure greater employment opportunities for UK workers when contracts for work in the UK are awarded to companies registered overseas; and if he will make a statement.

Patrick McFadden: The Government support the rights of labour mobility that go with European Union membership. We supported the European Commission's proposals to ask its group of experts to examine the operation of the posted workers directive and to ask social partners at European level to discuss the implications of recent European Court judgments. The posted workers directive operates throughout the EU and the recent report from the European Commission showed that there were 47,000 UK posted workers in the rest of the EU—three times more than the 15,000 posted workers from the rest of the EU working here in the UK.

John Robertson: The posted workers directive is, of course, the problem. The court ruling has brought it into disrepute, with subcontracting companies playing worker against worker, which is why we ended up with the strikes this week. Is it not time the UK put workers rights in the EU as No. 1 on the agenda, and made sure that we lead the field in ensuring that the rights of those workers are looked after?

Patrick McFadden: I understand what my hon. Friend says, but I am not sure that the recent court judgments are relevant to the unofficial strike action over the past weeks. Those judgments are essentially about pay and about the capacity of trade unions to take industrial action in support of collective agreements. We have been told that all subcontractors on the site at the Lindsey oil refinery are required to pay according to the industry agreed rates. ACAS will test the veracity of that claim, but that is what we have been told, so whatever this week's dispute was about, it does not seem, on the face of it, to have been about a race to the bottom in terms of pay.

David Heathcoat-Amory: Is not the recent industrial unrest a direct result of the Prime Minister's call, from weakness, for "British jobs for British workers"? In answering the hon. Member for Glasgow, North-West (John Robertson), would it not be more honest for the Government to admit that the Prime Minister could never deliver on that promise? He is legally bound by EU law, which the European Commission has no intention of amending at all. What other way is the Minister finding through this terrible dilemma of serious industrial unrest, up against a legal prohibition on anything serious being done to remedy it?

Patrick McFadden: I do not accept the right hon. Gentleman's premise. Everyone in the House wants to see British workers having jobs, and we want them to have the skills and training necessary for that. However, we do not want to forsake a relationship whereby half our exports go to the rest of the EU, half of our inward investment comes from the rest of the EU, and 3 million to 3.5 million—one in 10—of the jobs in this country are in some way associated with trade with the rest of the EU. It is not inconsistent to support that and also to support skills and training for British workers for the jobs and industries of the future.

Shona McIsaac: Given that the dispute at the Lindsey oil refinery seems to have been resolved, I would like Ministers to consider some of the wider issues underlying it. If terms and conditions are equal and there are no differences in pay, will the Minister and his ministerial colleagues look into why British firms are losing contracts, and why they are not winning the contracts when they compete against European firms? We need to establish that if we are to get to the real reason why the dispute occurred.

Patrick McFadden: My hon. Friend raises an important question, and I know that she has been very close to this issue and taken time to establish the facts. The question that she poses is a good one. If the issue was not about pay, what, in the competition for the contracts, may sometimes mean that UK firms lose out? That does not mean that every time a non-UK firm wins a contract some rule has been broken or we need a change in the law. There could be other reasons. My hon. Friend has asked an important and pertinent question.

William Cash: The Minister will be aware of the Bill that I introduced a couple of days ago on this issue. It supports, of course, the notion of fair movement, but it also supports free movement and fair provision for services and workers. Is he aware that in several other member states, parallel legislation already prevents social dumping, precisely because there are circumstances in which a correction is needed? Will the Minister be good enough to answer the question that I now have on the Order Paper? It is about ensuring that we bring in domestic legislation to ensure fair and free movement, and that we look after British workers as well.

Patrick McFadden: I believe in fair and free movement, and the Government have introduced many important employment rights for UK workers in the past decade. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will agree that it was a step forward for the employers in this situation to agree on guidance, which states:
	"Always consider whether there are competent workers available locally. If there are, it is good practice for the non-UK contractor to explore and consider the local skills availability and to consider any applications that may be forthcoming."
	Two important things were required to end the dispute. One was that there should be a fair chance for UK workers. The other was that no Italian worker who was here legally should have to be sent home; I am glad that that too was supported by the trade unions in this situation.

Dennis Skinner: If the Government want to ensure that we do not have another situation such as that at Lindsey or anywhere else, the truth is that we need, among other things, to enact the Temporary and Agency Workers (Equal Treatment) Bill in total. That would ensure that middlemen and agency operators were not allowed to pick up about 25 per cent. of the earnings from foreign labour. Once we do that, we can stop the Lindseys of the future and deal with the matter in the Common Market as well.

Patrick McFadden: I do not believe that agency workers were a factor in the Lindsey dispute. My understanding is that in that particular part of the construction industry the workers are directly employed by the subcontractors on the site. I have also been told that the subcontractors all have to pay the agreed rates. However, I agree with my hon. Friend that it was right to reach an agreement on the agency workers directive which suited the UK labour market. We did that on the basis of an agreement between the TUC and the CBI which was then reflected in the text of the agreed directive. The Government will bring forward a consultation on the implementation of the directive here in the UK.

Jo Swinson: More than 16 jobs will be lost as a result of the recent awarding of a specialist vessel requirement Navy contract in the Falklands to a Dutch company with a Filipino crew, instead of to the Scottish company that has provided the service successfully for 27 years. As there are serious questions about the tendering process, with correct procedure not having been followed, will the Minister ask his colleagues in the Ministry of Defence to investigate the circumstances of this case?

Patrick McFadden: I am not aware of the individual circumstances of that case, but I am happy to ask the relevant Department to look into the issues that the hon. Lady has raised.

Tony Lloyd: Does my hon. Friend accept that it is not protectionist to insist on minimum pay and working conditions for British workers in competition with foreign workers? In that context, and in terms of the posted workers directive, can he insist that the European Commission gets a move on with its review? Will he also look at the British angle of this, which is that the current minimum standard is the minimum wage, but that we could move the standard up to nationally agreed collective bargaining regulation?

Patrick McFadden: I believe—or at least, I have been informed—that the agreed collective bargaining rate applies in this case, and that therefore pay was not an issue in this dispute. As for the European Commission's proposal to examine the operation of the posted workers directive, the UK Government supported that when it was discussed in December.

Consumer Demand

Hugh Bayley: What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of his Department's policies to encourage consumer demand.

Gareth Thomas: The Government have a variety of measures in place to encourage consumer demand. Within the Department, among other measures, we are conducting a wide-ranging review of the effectiveness of the consumer protection regime. That is one of a number of measures that will assist in giving consumers renewed confidence. We will announce the outcomes of the review in due course.

Hugh Bayley: With the economy in recession, it is important to do everything we can to improve demand for goods and services. Has the Department considered the impact that the cut in VAT has had on increasing demand and safeguarding jobs?

Gareth Thomas: As my hon. Friend will recognise, the VAT cut, and other questions around taxation, are very much a matter for the Treasury, so the Treasury will review the effectiveness of that measure. However, it is interesting to note the support from several bodies that could in no way be described as friends of the Government all the time—the Institute for Fiscal Studies is one, and the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders is another—but that welcomed the impact of the cut in VAT, as indeed have a number of retailers. Perhaps that is because it represents the largest single tax cut for some 20 years. It is also just one of a number of areas about which the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) disagrees with his shadow Chancellor.

Christopher Chope: Is the Minister aware of an example of a case in which the Government are actively suppressing demand—a case about which I wrote to the Secretary of State on 10 December? I have not had a reply, despite putting down parliamentary questions. Eighty jobs in my constituency are threatened because the Government have changed the regulations, making it more difficult for foreign airlines to have their pilots trained on simulator training equipment in a company in my constituency. Is not that an example of the Government speaking with one voice and acting in another way?

Gareth Thomas: If the hon. Gentleman had written to me, I would, as he knows, have been very happy to reply. I do not know what has happened in the particular case that he refers to. He has clearly written to the Department, and I will chase up a response for him as a result of his question.

Jim Devine: As my hon. Friend is aware, many scams are taking place—phishing expeditions, for example—on computers. What is the Department doing to protect consumers from those scams?

Gareth Thomas: My hon. Friend is right to say that consumer demand can suffer when people are the victims of scams. He may not be aware that the Office of Fair Trading and the Trading Standards Institute have just launched an effort to make people aware of the risks of scams—scams awareness month. I pay tribute to the all-party group on consumer affairs and trading standards, which supported the OFT and the TSI in launching that month's-worth of awareness-raising activities just this week. It is one of a number of measures, alongside investment in scam-buster teams and teams to deal with illegal money lending, through which we are seeking to crack down on the rogues who want to exploit vulnerable consumers at this time.

Richard Spring: Given the universally held view at home and abroad that the VAT cut has been ineffective in stimulating demand, what assessment has the Department made of the effect of the VAT cut on slumping car sales in this country?

Gareth Thomas: With all due respect to the hon. Gentleman, I do not think that his view of the VAT cut is shared abroad or at home. The only place where that view is held is among the ranks of the Opposition. He would do well to review what the Institute for Fiscal Studies said about the VAT cut, and the comments of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. He might also wish to review the comments that the shadow Business Secretary made before the VAT cut was introduced.

Denis MacShane: Has my hon. Friend seen the important article by Professor Thomas Piketty, France's leading economist, praising the VAT cut as a way of increasing demand across the economy, and suggesting that it should be applied across Europe? It is only the economic illiterates surrounding the new shadow Business Secretary who believe the opposite. Will his Department look at the example of Germany and France, which are offering scrap-and-build incentives whereby people bring in their old polluting cars and buy new ones?

Gareth Thomas: I hope that my right hon. Friend will forgive me if I concentrate on reading the  Harrow Observer and the  Harrow Times. I will, however, rush to dig out the article to which he refers. I suspect that the comments he mentions are just one indication of the considerable support that exists for the measures that my right hon. Friends the Chancellor, the Prime Minister and the Business Secretary have taken to restimulate demand in the UK economy and lead efforts to boost consumer demand. The VAT cut, the fiscal stimulus package and the increase in incomes that pensioners will see in their bank accounts are all examples of the measures that we have taken—measures that the Opposition continue to oppose.

Motor Industry

Jim Cunningham: What recent steps his Department has taken to support the motor industry; and if he will make a statement.

Ian Pearson: We have already announced support for businesses, including the automotive supply chain, through the enterprise finance guarantee and the working capital scheme, and helped to secure €8 billion for the sector through the European Investment Bank. Last week we announced a £2.3 billion package to support lending to the automotive industry, and work is under way with the European Commission to ensure that we can move forward on these measures as quickly as possible.

Jim Cunningham: What progress has been made with Jaguar Land Rover in any discussions or negotiations about assistance? Can the Minister define what assistance he is offering?

Ian Pearson: We have been in discussions with Jaguar Land Rover for a period of time. We are certainly aware of the company's situation, and we have been supportive by encouraging it to go to the European Investment Bank for finance. The measures that we announced last Tuesday will provide guarantees for any loan that JLR secures from the EIB, but the company has other requests and we will continue our dialogue with them. The key thing to stress is that we are talking about taxpayers' money, and we need to ensure that that money is used in the most effective way possible. We will continue to do that.

Mark Prisk: The announcement of aid last week came four months after the Minister first promised to help, but even today, as we learn that car sales have fallen again, the industry still does not have the details it needs to plan. There is no plan to help with consumer demand and loans, and the Government have now admitted that they have not even cleared their plans with the European Commission. Given that most of our competitors have already injected finance into their car industry, what is the problem? Do not Ministers understand the urgency, or is it just a matter of incompetence?

Ian Pearson: The hon. Gentleman ought to welcome the fact that we have announced a £2.3 billion package of loan guarantees to the industry. May I provide some of the details that he seems studiously to ignore? We will be guaranteeing EIB loans of more than £200 million for non-investment grade companies, which we need to do to ensure that they can get access to the necessary finance, as soon as those loans are approved. We will also guarantee up to £1 billion of new lending to companies looking to borrow more than £5 million. That will sit on top of the enterprise finance guarantee scheme that we have already announced, which we have talked about this morning. We hope that it will be open for business as quickly as possible.
	I expect the state aid process to take days rather than months, and we will report on its progress. In the meantime, we are contacting all the companies in the automotive supply chain with a turnover above £25 million that could take advantage of the scheme, and talking to them about their requirements. We are getting on with the process of discussing what sensible lending might be made available to them now, rather than waiting for EU state aid approval.

Payment Policies

Robert Smith: What recent discussions he has had with large corporations about their policies on prompt payment of contractors and suppliers.

Ian Pearson: DBERR has been in contact with more than 200 of the UK's largest corporations and business representative bodies. Additionally, we have brought forward more than £66 billion of payments made by central Government Departments, launched a series of cash flow management guides to ensure that business has access to the very best information and supported the launch of a new prompt payment code by the Institute of Credit Management.

Robert Smith: I thank the Minister for that answer. We clearly have to recognise that if large companies do not pay quickly in this crisis, they will force their supply chain out of business and lose out in the long run. Is it not crucial, given the balance of power between the large companies and the small companies trying to enforce payment terms, that there is more external intervention? To that end, does he support the call by the Federation of Small Businesses for Companies House to be given more resources to name and shame companies that do not register their payment terms with it?

Ian Pearson: Yes, it is important that big companies look to do what they can to support their supply chain during these difficult times. In the automotive industry, for instance, I am aware of a number of car manufacturers actively working with their supply chain and paying earlier than they normally do. Particularly in a time of lean or just-in-time production in the supply chains of the automotive industry and many other sectors of our economy, big companies have a direct interest in ensuring that small companies continue to survive. Many of them are already taking action to do that. Of course, the action that the Government are taking to stimulate credit in the economy will also help those small businesses.

John Penrose: Does the Minister accept that the Government's efforts to promote prompt payment by large corporations will be severely undermined if they cannot put their own house in order? Will he therefore promise to investigate reports that many NHS trusts are failing to pay their contractors and suppliers within 30 days—far beyond the 14 days that the Government have promised?

Ian Pearson: I will certainly ensure that the Department of Health is aware of the concerns that the hon. Gentleman expresses. We have made a prompt payment commitment right across government, and we expect it to be delivered on. Inevitably, there may be some situations in which queries are made about invoices and judgments have to be taken about whether payment should be made, because we need to protect taxpayers' money. We want to ensure that payments are made properly and promptly, and I will happily ensure that his comments are passed on.

Topical Questions

Simon Hughes: If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

Patrick McFadden: My Department is focused on helping business through the current economic downturn and ensuring that British business is in the best place possible to take advantage of the upturn, when eventually it comes.

Simon Hughes: A small business in Borough high street in Southwark, which has been trading for 12 years, making a profit and paying all its bills, was recently 12 days late in paying its tax and liabilities. It paid them on 30 and 31 December rather than 19 December. On 31 December, it received a letter from Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs stating:
	"Your case will be referred for enforcement action...if payment is not made immediately."
	Will Ministers talk to their colleagues in the Treasury and the Revenue to ensure that they are understanding of the difficulties when payments in make payments out a bit more difficult?

Patrick McFadden: I am happy to ask HMRC to consider the case that the hon. Gentleman raises. As the Chancellor announced in the pre-Budget report, businesses have the capacity to ask for more time to pay tax during the current period, and some 30,000 businesses have taken advantage of that capacity in recent months. Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs is aware of the problem and understands the difficulties of business in the current period.

Roberta Blackman-Woods: The Minister will be aware that many north-east Members of Parliament are concerned about Nissan and the car industry in general. What is the Department doing to support and encourage Nissan to develop a new generation of cars, which are low energy and low-carbon emitting?

Ian Pearson: I thank my hon. Friend for that question. Nissan is an important part of the north-east regional economy, with one of the most efficient plants in the whole of western Europe. Like other car companies, Nissan is going through major problems because of the current lack of demand for cars.
	My hon. Friend is right to highlight the importance of the future. Nissan is interested in producing a new generation of electric vehicles and we have been in direct discussions with the company about that. We would like the vehicles to be made in the north-east and we will continue to have dialogue with Nissan about the matter.

Philip Dunne: Will the Minister confirm whether the Department or Royal Mail have entered into any discussions with a private equity firm about the possible sale of a stake in Royal Mail?

Patrick McFadden: The process for people expressing an interest in Royal Mail is open and we have not reached any conclusion so far on the prospective partner. We believe that it is in the interests of Royal Mail to partner with an experienced network or postal partner that has gone through the experience of change in a network operation of the sort that Royal Mail runs.

Kenneth Clarke: As the theme of these questions has been a series of pronouncements and commitments given by the Government and questions about dithering and failure to deliver, was the Minister surprised to hear the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when giving evidence on Tuesday to the House of Lords, openly debating what form his latest big announcement might take, and whether the Government were switching from insurance of toxic debts in the banks' balance sheets to a possible bad bank solution? As it is widely known that Baroness Vadera, a colleague in the Minister's Department, is mainly in charge of the banking packages, will he get across to her the need for urgency, efficiency and some competence in delivery, and stress to her that British business cannot afford further delay and uncertainty before credit is got flowing properly again to businesses of all sizes?

Patrick McFadden: We fully understand the depth of the current crisis, which is why we have been active, first on recapitalising the banks and then on taking a greater share of risk in lending. The whole world is going through the downturn and Governments have to act to try to restore confidence and lending. That is precisely what we are doing.
	I have to contrast our actions with the Conservative party's approach. In the words of Professor Paul Krugman, the Nobel prize winner:
	"It's pure Herbert Hoover... In fact, it reminds me of Andrew Mellon"—
	Hoover's Secretary of the Treasury,
	"who said the"
	Government
	"response to the Depression should be to 'liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, and liquidate farmers'."
	That is what the Nobel prize-winning economist thinks of the Conservative party's approach. Ours is much more in tune with the task in hand.

Fiona Mactaggart: Few of my constituents get an annual bonus and many face pay cuts in the downturn. Given that, will the Minister take a leaf out of Barack Obama's book and put a cap on the pay and bonuses of people who have run down our banks, which my constituents' taxes are subsidising?

Patrick McFadden: I understand the question that my hon. Friend raises. Given the economic circumstances, banks must realise that there are huge public sensitivities about the issue. The public expect restraint. They also expect that if any bonuses are to be paid, they should be paid on the basis of achievement, not past failures.

Nicholas Winterton: If the Minister is keen to reassure British workers about their jobs, particularly those in major infrastructure projects, will he publish a list of British companies, and in particular British construction companies, that are undertaking important infrastructure and other projects in other European countries? That information might well reassure some British workers. Will he publish such a list, and if so, the sooner the better?

Gareth Thomas: Perhaps I can encourage the hon. Gentleman. British Ministers have taken construction companies on a series of international trade missions, helping them to win contracts abroad, not just in European countries, but in Asian countries, Gulf countries and so on. The details of those visits are public—questions have been asked about them—and some of the contracts that have been signed are public as a result. We will continue to work with the construction industry. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State has already met the construction industry and he will continue to do so.

John Robertson: The recent interim "Digital Britain" report went on about access being very important, but provision is the important part. Does my hon. Friend agree that social tariffs would be one way of including those who are least well off, who have the lowest uptake, such as the people of Glasgow? If the Government go down the social tariff route, will they also talk to the mobile phone companies, which we also need to get on board?

Patrick McFadden: I am sure that my noble Friend Lord Carter will listen carefully to my hon. Friend, who raises an important point in general. As we go through this downturn, we must also look to the industries of the future. The communications revolution and good broadband access throughout the country are critical to our country's economic future. That is why they are such a high priority for the Government.

David Heath: Are Ministers content with the operation of the Enterprise Act 2002, particularly in respect of pre-pack companies, which can take over companies that have gone into administration, but which often walk away from the obligations to local traders, the work force and even the Revenue? Does that seem a fair way of operating companies?

Ian Pearson: It is important to recognise that there has been some recent public concern about the use of pre-pack administrations. We will always keep Government policy under review, and that includes the Enterprise Act 2002. Issues have arisen with some pre-packs, but there are also some advantages to pre-packs in terms of maintaining employment. I understand the comments that the hon. Gentleman makes and we will look at the matter closely.

Paul Burstow: Further to the question that my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) asked, will the Minister, in keeping the matter under review, also consider looking at the regulations that govern administration, so that where companies go into receivership, the administrators can ensure that they safeguard the interests of local creditors, which are often struggling small businesses themselves, and the loyal employees of those companies?

Ian Pearson: It is the job of administrators to act in the best interests of creditors. It is also the job of the administrator to ensure that where a company can continue as a going concern, it does so. There are some lessons we might want to learn that have arisen from recent administrations. Sometimes the communication between the administrator and trade unions that have approved negotiating rights with companies has not been satisfactory. There have also been some suggestions that in some administrations there has been a rush to move towards liquidation without allowing sufficient time to explore other options. Again, that is something that we are actively looking at.

CHURCH COMMISSIONERS

The hon. Member for Middlesbrough, representing the Church Commissioners, was asked—

Investment Portfolio

Andrew Pelling: What steps the Church Commissioners have taken to protect their investment portfolio since 1 October 2008.

Stuart Bell: In the final few months of 2008, the commissioners established two new mandates with funds raised from UK equity sales in the first half of the year. They were an active global equities mandate and an unconstrained mandate, which invests in a mixture of equities, bonds and cash, as determined by the manager. Both mandates added value in the final quarter of the year and delivered positive returns in a difficult environment.

Andrew Pelling: Obviously some sagacity has been shown in taking money out of equities. I am aware that an important paper is to go to the General Synod this month on the implications of the financial crisis and the recession. Will the management of the funds continue to protect assets and assist the Church in its ministering role?

Stuart Bell: The hon. Gentleman is perfectly right, in the sense that the Church looks at the long term and at inter-generational fairness. The commissioners, in common with similar funds, have been affected by the global economic downturn, but we are not speculating on figures. The audited results will be published in our annual report, but the latest actuarial advice that we have received, which fits in with the hon. Gentleman's question, is that we will be able to meet our 2008-10 expenditure plans, and that because of the way in which we smooth our non-pensions expenditure, we expect to maintain these distributions in cash terms into 2011 and 2013, further falls in the market notwithstanding.

Andy Reed: I know that the Church Commissioners have regard to an ethical dimension in the investments that they make. In view of the General Synod's discussions next week on the Church's response to the financial crisis, will my hon. Friend ensure, through his good offices, that that ethical dimension is maintained, even in these difficult circumstances, when there is always an idea that it might be possible to make a quick buck? The Church should remain above all those elements and ensure that it learns lessons from the General Synod's discussions next week and builds them into its future investment programmes.

Stuart Bell: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. We look forward to that debate in the General Synod. In my Father's house are many mansions, and next week there will be many aspects to the debate on the Government's economic policy.
	On ethical investment, I can assure my hon. Friend that the two new mandates are not permitted to engage in short selling, but they do have the ability to invest in instruments to protect funds under their management against adverse currency movements. There are no positions in hedge funds or direct exposure to sub-prime assets. Ethical investment has been the cornerstone of the Church of England's Commissioners for many years, I think going back to the 1940s.

PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMISSION

The Chairman of the Public Accounts Commission was asked—

Tenon

Philip Hollobone: For what reasons Tenon was appointed as the National Audit Office's external auditor for a further year from June 2009.

Edward Leigh: Following a competition in 2006, the Commission appointed Tenon for three years, with the option of two one-year extensions. The Commission has been satisfied with Tenon's performance and has decided to exercise the option to extend the appointment for a further year, to July 2010.

Philip Hollobone: What key recommendations has Tenon made since its appointment?

Edward Leigh: Tenon has made a number of important recommendations on, for example, business reporting arrangements, the management of fee income and how to deliver work programmes in the most effective way. With all the recommendations accepted, its work has ensured that the National Audit Office, working with the Public Accounts Committee, continues to be a world-class operation that delivers a £9 saving for every £1 spent. That means that £656 million is delivered back to the taxpayer every year.

David Taylor: Are we not back, however, to the central dilemma of Plato's "Republic": quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who should audit the auditors? Have we not got a cosy cabal between Tenon and the NAO? Tenon failed to detect—or overlooked or declined to report on—the gold-plated, fur-lined expense arrangements of the former Comptroller and Auditor General, Sir John Bourn. What confidence can we have in its forensic ability to report on the things that matter in relation to the operation of the NAO?

Edward Leigh: As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have now put in place a completely new governance structure for the National Audit Office. For the first time, there will be an independent chairman working with the Prime Minister. We have appointed Sir Andrew Likierman, who is probably the country's leading expert on resource accounts, to be the chairman of the NAO, and he will lead a board that will directly oversee the Comptroller and Auditor General in terms of his expenses and all the things that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned. At the same time, the board will ensure that the Comptroller and Auditor General continues to be fully independent in delivering value-for-money reports. We have also, with the Prime Minister, appointed Amyas Morse—a first-class appointment—who will deliver the kind of improvements that the hon. Gentleman wants.

ELECTORAL COMMISSION COMMITTEE

The hon. Member for Gosport, representing the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission, was asked—

Electoral Fraud

Fiona Mactaggart: What guidance the Electoral Commission has issued to electoral registration officers on steps they should take in constituencies where fraudulent entries on the electoral register have been revealed by prosecutions.

Peter Viggers: The Electoral Commission informs me that where malpractice has been exposed, it discusses lessons learned in detail with the electoral registration officers. More generally, the commission issues guidance to all electoral registration officers on suggested approaches to adopt in compiling and maintaining complete and accurate registers. This guidance reflects lessons learned from instances where there has been evidence of malpractice.

Fiona Mactaggart: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that reply. There is a particular problem in my constituency, where a criminal case has arisen that is being dealt with in Reading court, and there has been an electoral case demonstrating that people are listed on the register who do not exist, but who have postal votes. I am profoundly concerned that when postal votes are issued, they last five years before they can be removed by the electoral registration officer, and if the person on the register does not exist, there is no way of confirming it. Will the hon. Gentleman discuss with the Electoral Commission whether there is something it can do in these circumstances to ensure that we avoid the fraudulent voting that has occurred in Slough?

Peter Viggers: The commission shares the court's very serious concerns about the system of voter registration in Great Britain. Since 2003, the commission has called for a reform of the system to provide security where it is needed, which is at the point of registration, and it argues that a system of individual electoral registration with personal identifiers is needed to provide a secure foundation for both registration and postal voting.

John Horam: What research has the Electoral Commission undertaken on the extent of fraudulent entries on the electoral register? I am thinking about not just the deliberate fraud that the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) mentioned, but the overall accuracy of the electoral register throughout the UK. That seems to me to be a rather fundamental point as we approach a possible general election.

Peter Viggers: Malpractice has been the subject of a study and statistics are available. The amount of malpractice is in fact comparatively small, but it takes only a small amount of malpractice to create a great deal of suspicion and concern about the system generally. The United Kingdom is one of only two countries in the world to have a system of household registration, which, as the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) pointed out, provides an opportunity for the head of the household or anyone who interferes with the post to carry out such fraud. The other country that has a system of household registration is Zimbabwe.

David Heath: The hon. Gentleman knows that I agree with the Electoral Commission about the need for personal identification, but I think that the point made by the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) about the integrity of the electoral register is extremely important. The issue is not just fraud, but one of attrition, as to whether the electoral registers are kept up to date when people die or move away, for example. What research has been done on that aspect, and what guidance can be given to electoral registration officers to ensure that they keep a fully up-to-date and accurate register, which is essential?

Peter Viggers: Recent legislation has given the Electoral Commission power to issue more guidance to electoral registration officers, and the commission is taking that power. The commission feels strongly that the best way ahead is through individual registration, and its call has been backed by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and, most recently, the Slough electoral petition, in which Richard Mawrey, QC, called for immediate reform of the voter registration process to remove opportunities for electoral malpractice.

CHURCH COMMISSIONERS

The hon. Member for Middlesbrough, representing the Church Commissioners, was asked—

Historic Churches

Anne McIntosh: What recent discussions the Church Commissioners have had with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport on funding for the preservation of historic churches.

Stuart Bell: Church of England officials have been meeting officials from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and other Government Departments. Those discussions seek, among other things, to identify national, regional and local sources of funds and ensure that the provision of community services in church buildings qualifies for these sources of funding on an equal basis as in respect of non-church buildings.

Anne McIntosh: I understand that the heritage grant is to be reduced this year, and that the funding of churches and church repairs is reaching crisis point. There has been a spate of thefts of lead from roofs, and churches must pay VAT on repairs. They have thousands of pounds' worth of commitments and very little by way of grant. What can the hon. Gentleman do, as a matter of urgency, to ensure that the largest possible heritage grant is available for the restoration of churches?

Stuart Bell: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising a matter that is extremely important to the Church. We continue to monitor the heritage fund grant because we are constantly hearing that it may be reduced.
	The hon. Lady is, of course, aware of our own efforts and campaigning to ensure that VAT on church repairs is effectively reduced to 5 per cent. She is right to say that we need to inject value into our church repairs. At least £925 million will be needed over the next five years to repair listed places of worship in England, most of which will be raised by congregations and local communities. The hon. Lady's efforts, and the efforts of the House, to maintain pressure on the Government are most welcome.

Water Charges

Robert Key: What estimate the Church Commissioners have made of the cost to English parishes of the new area charging regime introduced by water companies; and if he will make a statement.

Stuart Bell: I estimate that the new charge—and, where applicable, highways drainage contributions—will cost Church of England churches and cathedrals about £15 million or more. Let me add by way of a statement that I consider the new charging regime to be unfair to the churches, small sports clubs and voluntary organisations that enrich our communities. Ministers are considering how to respond to these concerns, and we await their response with interest.

Robert Key: I think that the churches, charities and sports organisations await a ministerial announcement not just with interest but with anger. I wrote to the Minister responsible on 19 December, and his office has informed me today that I should receive a reply to my letter in the next few weeks. Would it not be better if the Second Church Estates Commissioner had a word with Ministers to ensure that they reach some conclusion about the need for new legislation—not just tinkering with guidance notes—before the Church of England debates the matter in our Synod next week?

Stuart Bell: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for writing to the Minister personally.
	A great deal of pressure has been exerted on the Government, not only by the Church but by the Scout Association, which has campaigned on the issue. Only yesterday a petition from former sports stars Brian Moore and Mike Gatting outlining the impact on sports clubs was received by the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. The pressure is on the Government, and what we want is for the Government to respond. If I may use a biblical phrase, let me say: those who have ears, let them hear.

Patrick Cormack: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this matter arises from a rather misguided decision by Ofwat, with which I have been in correspondence for well over six months, and that, as is clear from that correspondence, the individual water companies still have a degree of latitude that would enable them to exempt churches?

Stuart Bell: The hon. Gentleman is right, in that the matter lies with Ofwat; and therein, I suspect, lies the dilemma of Ministers. How do they intervene with Ofwat? How do they intervene on behalf of the Church or in relation to the Scouts Association? How do they intervene on behalf of all the small concerns that are the lifeblood of our country and act in their interests? That is a dilemma for the Government to which they should respond and on which they should reach a conclusion that is favourable to the Church's interest and also robust. We want no tinkering with the system and no filibustering here or there; we want a clear decision that is in the interests of the organisations to which I have referred.

Speaker's Statement

Mr. Speaker: On Monday of this week, the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) raised the matter of a request by the Metropolitan police for access to e-mail correspondence between the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green). I have caused the matter to be investigated. I can now inform the House that the request was made by the solicitors for the Metropolitan police service to the solicitors acting for the hon. Member for Ashford. The request concerned the methods to be used to establish the relevance to a criminal investigation of material which was already in the possession of the police. The request did not seek any further material from the hon. Member for Ashford, and no approach was made either by the Metropolitan police service or by its solicitors to the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden.

Business of the House

Alan Duncan: Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week?

Harriet Harman: The business for next week is as follows:
	Monday 9 February—Motion to approve a Standards and Privileges Committee report on dual reporting and the revised guide to the rules followed by remaining stages of the Political Parties and Elections Bill (Day 1).
	Tuesday 10 February—Motion to approve a money resolution on the Banking Bill, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Banking Bill.
	Wednesday 11 February—Opposition day (5th Allotted Day). There will be a debate entitled "Government's failure to address the increase in housing waiting lists", followed by a debate on the future of Royal Mail. Both debates will arise on an Opposition motion followed by, if necessary, consideration of Lords amendments.
	Thursday 12 February—Motions relating to the draft Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2009 and draft Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2009.
	The provisional business for the week commencing 23 February will include:
	Monday 23 February—Second Reading of the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill.
	Tuesday 24 February—Opposition day (6th Allotted Day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.
	Wednesday 25 February—Remaining stages of the Saving Gateway Accounts Bill.
	Thursday 26 February—General debate on Welsh Affairs.
	Friday 27 February—Private Members' Bills.
	I would also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 26 February and 5 March will be as follows:
	Thursday 26 February—A debate on the report from the Work and Pensions Committee on valuing and supporting carers.
	Thursday 5 March—A debate on the report from the Joint Committee on Human Rights entitled, "A Life Like Any Other? Human Rights of Adults with Learning Disabilities".

Alan Duncan: I thank the right hon. and learned Lady for her statement, but may I, once again, ask for a debate on Equitable Life? Last week, the right hon. and learned Lady twice used the word "compensation" with reference to those who have lost out from the collapse of Equitable Life, but the word appears in neither the oral statement given to the House by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury on 15 January nor the Command Paper published immediately afterwards. Can the right hon. and learned Lady confirm that the Government will indeed be giving compensation, and not just means-tested payments? Is she aware of what the ombudsman—or, to use her favoured form of words, the ombudsperson—was complaining about last week when she said that the Government's response to her report had twisted her words and was spinning deceits?
	Leaks to the press have suggested that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor are considering delaying the Budget announcement. Given the seriousness of our current economic plight, can the Leader of the House tell us when the Chancellor will deliver his Budget to the House? Some companies facing a slump in demand for their products have decided simply to shut down for a few months; have the Government decided to do the same?
	Last week, the right hon. and learned Lady declined to answer a question from my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight) about her plans for the Modernisation Committee. That Committee has not met since July. May we have a statement on whether she plans to abolish it—as some of my hon. Friends would like—fold it into the Procedure Committee, or revive it?
	May we also perhaps have a debate on moral authority, so that this House can help to establish a code of modern manners for privacy, humour and comment, which can be practised and agreed by everyone, in place of the current chaos, which provokes animosity and condemnation when it all could be so much better handled?
	It seems that we have more inclement weather moving in. Perhaps the right hon. and learned Lady can dismiss the scurrilous rumours circulating this week that she spent most of Monday building a snowperson? We are now learning that some councils have been forced to scale back and even halt their gritting and salting programmes owing to national shortages, so may we have a debate on this country's lack of preparedness for snow and ice?
	The report by the Select Committee on Business and Enterprise on the annual report of the Department criticised the lack of proper accountability caused by the large number of Ministers, including the Secretary of State Lord Mandelson, who are not in this House, but in another place. That report, which was published more than two months ago, called for urgent action by the Government to investigate possible solutions to this imbalance, but there has still been no formal response—when will there be such a response from the Government?
	We are all in favour of Ministers flying the flag for Britain but, unlike Lord Mandelson, we like to do things the right way up. Given that flying the flag upside down is an internationally recognised sign of distress, was his appearance in front of such a symbol a mistake or a desperate cry for help? The truth is that the Prime Minister has moved from recession to depression, the country has run out of salt, the Government have run out of grit and now they are flying the flag of distress. How long will we have to wait before this Government follow the lead of Iceland and simply decide to pack up and go home?

Harriet Harman: Well, I give the hon. Gentleman 10 out of 10 for frothy presentation and about zero for substance, but I shall try to glean some substantive points from his comments. On Equitable Life, whatever the terminology—[Hon. Members: "Oh."] Well, we are talking about the Government recognising that there had been not only terrible mismanagement by Equitable Life but regulatory failure, that an apology was due, and that there was a need for financial recompense—whatever the words one uses to describe it. I refer the hon. Gentleman to the statement made to this House by my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury.
	The hon. Gentleman asked when the Budget would be announced, so I shall tell him that it will be announced in the usual way. He implied that the Government were not taking action on the economy. I think he would recognise from all the statements made to this House and from all the Government's announcements that we have taken unprecedented action both to help people through the recession in this country and to work internationally to improve the global financial situation.
	The hon. Gentleman also asked about the Modernisation Committee. I did not avoid the question put last week—I answered it. There are many programmes of modernisation working their way through the system for which we can thank the Modernisation Committee—for example, those on pre-legislative scrutiny, post-legislative scrutiny and having Bills in plain English. The Modernisation Committee's work runs alongside that of the Procedure Committee. Because of ministerial appointments, there have to be new Members on the Modernisation Committee. I am sure that the Committee of Selection will come forward with those appointments and the work on the modernisation of the House will continue.
	On Monday, the business of the House carried on as usual, and I add my tribute to the one that you paid, Mr. Speaker, to the 800 members of staff of this House who came in to keep the House working as usual. I do not know what the hon. Gentleman was doing on Monday but, as far as I was concerned, as Leader of the House it was business as usual. He talked about snow, ice and grit. The Highways Agency is working with the Government, the Department for Transport and the Local Government Association to ensure that there is proper distribution of salt and that we can keep as many of the roads open as possible. He ended up with a general swipe at Ministers in the Lords, but I would like to pay tribute to the work of those people who step forward to be Ministers in the Lords; it is a question of serious people for serious times.

Ann Cryer: Can time be found next week for an urgent debate on early-day motion 426, which I tabled?
	 [That this House notes the disproportionate impact on building societies of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) levy, resulting from the failure of Bradford and Bingley plc, the Icelandic banks and London Scottish Bank; rec ognises that building societies' share of the levy, approximately £200 million per annum in each of the next three years, is equivalent to a bout 15 per cent. of the sector' s pre-tax profit for 2007-08 financial year ends; notes that build ing societies' share of the levy for years beyond 2011 is uncertain, but could well be higher than £200 million per annum; acknowledges that the impact on building societies contrasts starkly with the banking sector, where the FSCS levy is typically well below five per cent. of pre-tax profits over a similar accounting period; further notes that the current allocation of the FSCS levy works to the  detriment of building societies' members, their savers and borrowers; acknowledges that no building society has ever made a call on the FSCS or its predecessor schemes; and calls on the Government to introduce a more equitable scheme for funding the insurance of deposits of failed banks.]
	The motion now has 119 signatures, but not many from the Conservatives.

Harriet Harman: I know that my hon. Friend has raised this issue personally with the Prime Minister. To take the matter forward, she may wish to consider whether it is a suitable subject for a Westminster Hall debate.

David Heath: On the grounds that we should sometimes talk about what the rest of the country is talking about, there is a case for the topical debate next week to be on planning for adverse weather conditions.
	I welcome the statement from the Foreign Secretary on the case of Binyam Mohamed that will follow business questions. I suggest, however, that we may need a statement from the Prime Minister, because the ruling from the court case makes it clear that the Intelligence and Security Committee, which is under the Prime Minister's tutelage, was asked to look at this matter, but 42 relevant documents were not given to it. This is a matter of the greatest gravity on the issue of the rule of law, and the Prime Minister needs to tell the House exactly what has happened.
	May we have two statements on Iceland? We need one on the position of the Government and the regulatory authorities in relation to Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander in the Isle of Man and Guernsey, so that we can be sure that the Government have acted appropriately to protect the interests of United Kingdom depositors in that bank? The second should be on the apparent liquidation of Baugur and the impact that that will have on a huge number of retail jobs in this country.
	In Prime Minister's questions, my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Andrew George) asked about the Competition Commission's proposals to protect primary suppliers from the oligopolistic attitudes of the major retailing supermarkets. The Prime Minister said that my hon. Friend was "absolutely right". When will legislation be introduced to set up a statutory ombudsman for the supply chain, as recommended by the commission?
	Last week, I drew attention to the credibility gap between what the Prime Minister says will happen and what actually happens. He said that the Government would accelerate capital programmes to deal with the recession; certainly in the case of colleges, they have stopped. He said that he would require energy companies to bring down prices; they have not. He said that he would require banks to increase lending and stop paying bonuses; they carry on regardless. He said that there would be a mortgage deferral scheme; two months later, it is not there. He announced an increase in house building, but last year only half as many houses were built as in the year before. May we have a debate on why it appears that nobody takes a blind bit of notice of what the Prime Minister actually says?

Harriet Harman: The hon. Gentleman's first point will be the subject of a statement by the Foreign Secretary immediately after business questions, so perhaps he could address that question to him. If the hon. Gentleman wants to ask the Prime Minister, Prime Minister's questions will of course take place next Wednesday.
	The hon. Gentleman raised the serious issue of the Icelandic banks. A great deal of information has been given to the House by Treasury Ministers, both by way of written ministerial statements and oral statements, and Treasury questions will take place next week. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the problems with Baugur, which highlight the importance of the tax stimulus that we have put into the economy, both by bringing forward cash for pensioners, child tax credit and tax rebates, and through the VAT cut, which will add to the benefits felt from the interest rate cuts. We have to recognise that retail is very much affected and should be the beneficiary of the tax stimulus that is being put into the economy.
	The hon. Gentleman also asked about the Competition Commission. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister answered the question yesterday and I do not think there is anything more I can add today. Obviously, the hon. Gentleman showed that he is fully in support of the point that lies behind the question asked by the hon. Member for St. Ives (Andrew George).
	The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) then made a range of accusations about things that have not worked. Actions have been taken and they are all working their way through the system: pressure has rightly been applied to bring down energy prices; interest rates have fallen; and the announcements for mortgage deferrals need to make their way through the system. He will recognise that against the background of a rapid deterioration in the global economic situation, we are taking all the actions that we can, not only internationally but nationally, to protect people. Yes, some of the measures take time to get through the system, but they are the right measures and we stand ready to introduce more. We will listen to any sensible suggestions from his party if such suggestions are made.

Stephen Ladyman: My right hon. and learned Friend will be aware that when the economy was growing rapidly, we legislated to expose empty commercial properties to business rates. When the economy slowed down, we exempted properties with a rateable value of up to £15,000. Is she aware that the South East England Development Agency and my local council have got together to build much-needed industrial premises in my constituency that will help us to attract jobs when the economy starts to grow but, in the meantime, will shortly be a business rate liability on the taxpayer? Will she raise that issue with the Chancellor and will she arrange for us to have an opportunity to debate it in the near future, and certainly before the Budget?

Harriet Harman: My hon. Friend is right to remind us that that measure was brought in to deter people from leaving property empty. I know that the subject has been raised by many hon. Members. Treasury questions will take place next week, so perhaps he can ask a Treasury Minister about it then.

Malcolm Moss: It was confirmed in a recent written answer by the Minister responsible for prisons that Whitemoor prison in my constituency has seen its proportion of Muslim prisoners increase by 14 percentage points, that is, from 20 to 34 per cent., in the last year for which figures are available. That is by far the largest proportion of Muslim prisoners in a high-security prison in the country and represents a disproportionate and unreasonable burden on the prison officer staff at Whitemoor. May we have a debate at the earliest opportunity on the dispersal policy for Muslim prisoners in the high-security estate?

Harriet Harman: I will pass those comments on to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice.

Anne Snelgrove: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware of the scandalous gender pay gap of 40 per cent. in the banking sector? Will she urge her ministerial colleagues to take action to rectify that situation, particularly as far as bonuses are concerned? They hardly ever fall to women and are awarded entirely subjectively. Frankly, it is unacceptable for that industry to carry on in the way that it has been doing.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady must request a debate. That would help.

Harriet Harman: This issue could also be raised in Treasury questions. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out that there is a great deal of concern about remuneration policies in the financial services industry. There has been concern about remuneration policies in relation to bonuses, which have appeared to reward failure and have involved huge figures. She also mentioned an unfairness: despite the fact that most of those who work in the financial services sector are women, it has the biggest gender pay gap of all sectors at 40 per cent. That is why I have asked the Equality and Human Rights Commission to carry out an investigation into pay discrimination in the financial services sector, which needs a root-and-branch overhaul in respect of remuneration.

Paul Goodman: The Environment Agency recently scrapped an anti-flooding programme in Marlow, in my constituency, after design errors by Halcrow, the consultants, were discovered. That came at a cost of about £1 million—and rising—to the taxpayer. May we have a debate in the reasonably near future on the use of consultants by Government agencies?

Harriet Harman: I shall draw the question to the attention of my right hon. Friends in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and I suggest that the hon. Gentleman seek the opportunity for a Westminster Hall debate on the subject.

Brian Iddon: In March, there will be a United Nation General Assembly special session on drugs in Vienna. That follows a similar UNGASS in Vienna last year, at which it was decided to consider reforming the three UN conventions that control the world's drug policy as well as the 1998 UN declaration on countering the world drug problem. There was a debate on the subject in the other place on 22 January. Do the Government intend to have a debate in this House to inform our delegate, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Mr. Campbell), on this extremely important matter?

Harriet Harman: My hon. Friend is right to say that this matter is extremely important. The UN has a major role to play in drawing countries together internationally in the fight against drugs. I understand that a very high percentage of the world's heroin comes from Afghanistan, so that might well be a subject that he could raise, if he can catch Mr. Speaker's eye, as part of this afternoon's debate.

Pete Wishart: Following the support of the both the Conservative and Labour parties for yesterday's Scottish National party budget to invest in jobs and freeze council tax, may we have a proper debate about how this House funds Scotland? Yesterday, we also learned that this crowd are prepared to slash—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We must use temperate language. Her Majesty's Opposition are not a crowd; they are hon. Members.

Pete Wishart: Her Majesty's loyal Opposition wants to slash Scottish expenditure by altering the way in which Scotland is funded. Meanwhile, the Government want to be more direct and slash £2 billion from the Scottish budget. May we have a proper debate to consider all the options, including full fiscal autonomy so that Scotland pays and raises its taxes and spends them in the way that it sees fit?

Harriet Harman: I suggest that the hon. Gentleman take the opportunity to raise that point in Treasury questions. It is difficult to think of a collective noun that could be used for the Opposition if they were not Her Majesty's Opposition. Today, the collective noun would certainly be "chaps".

Hugh Bayley: The falling value of the pound against other currencies creates important opportunities for export industries and inbound tourism. In fact, it would be accurate for advertisements to be placed in the eurozone or United States saying, "Come to Britain for your holiday—30 per cent. off last year's price." May we have a debate to discuss what the Government could do to exploit the exchange rate to help tourism businesses and export industries in the UK?

Harriet Harman: That is something that the Prime Minister answered yesterday. It is very much the preoccupation of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Tourism is very important in the City of York, which my hon. Friend represents, as well as in our coastal towns. I suggest that he could look for an opportunity for a Westminster Hall debate on the subject.

Andrew MacKay: May we have an early debate on the regulation of wheel clampers, particularly bearing in mind the case of my constituent, Tara Dougall, a health care professional whose car was clamped in deep snow this week? The cost of getting it back was £345, paid to a company called Park Direct.

Harriet Harman: I shall bring the matter to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport, and I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman writes to him about it. There are too many concerns and justified complaints about cowboy clampers, and perhaps we should be looking for someone to make an example of. The right hon. Gentleman may just have put his finger on a candidate.

Andrew Slaughter: On the front of yesterday's  Evening Standard was a picture of uncollected rubbish lying in the snow in Hammersmith. Many of my constituents have had no bus service or refuse collection this week, nor have they been able to walk on their pavements or drive on their streets, all because the incompetent Tory local council was not able to carry out its basic function of planning for, or reacting to, adverse weather. May we have a debate in Government time to explore how the Government can persuade local councils to carry out those basic functions?

Harriet Harman: I know that there is a great deal of concern about whether all the London boroughs stepped up to the mark to help people to get to work, and about all the problems caused for Transport for London by the fact that traffic could not run along the roads, which had a knock-on effect on bus services. The London boroughs, and London's Mayor as well, should take full responsibility for that.

George Young: In response to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alan Duncan), the Leader of the House said that she was sure that the Committee of Selection would shortly come up with some new names. Is she aware that responsibility for nominations to the Modernisation Committee rests not with the Committee of Selection, but with her?
	However, may I ask why there is no topical debate next Thursday, or the next sitting Thursday after that? How can the right hon. and learned Lady be so confident that nothing will happen in the next three weeks that merits a topical debate?

Harriet Harman: On the Thursday before the recess, we are debating social security orders, and on the Thursday following the recess, we are having a Welsh affairs debate. Usually, so many hon. Members from Wales want to speak in that debate that it is better not to carve out an hour and a half for a topical debate. However, if there is a pressing need for a topical debate next Thursday, in addition to the Government business of the social security upratings, I will consider arranging one, as I am aware that there will be a number of weeks without a topical debate. If we want to hold a topical debate on that Thursday, I can always come to the House and rearrange the business. The business that we intend to cover is as I have announced it, but I shall keep an eye on the matter.

David Taylor: There used to be a publishing imprint called "Condensed Classics", which provided compact versions of our nation's greatest literature. My early-day motion 665 attempts to do the same thing in relation to the series of articles this week in  The Guardian exposing the tax-avoidance industry.
	 [ That this House applauds the Guardian's serialised coverage of the tax avoidance industry and its cost to the public; observes that due to the complex and secretive nature of tax avoidance there is no accurate figure for the amount of tax that big business avoids paying in the UK every year; notes that the Trades Union Congress (TUC) estimates this annual hole in the public accounts to be £12 billion whilst the Public Accounts Committee puts the figure at £8.5 billion; further notes with concern the National Audit Office's finding that in 2006 more than 60 per cent, of Britain's 700 biggest companies paid less than £10 million corporation tax and 30 per cent, paid nothing; regards companies in the FTSE 100 and others indulging in this highly addictive practice as guilty of corporate malfeasance; seriously regrets that families and small to medium-sized businesses continue to plug this gap through disproportionately higher taxes; regrets the Government and HM Revenue and Customs' decision to close local tax offices at a time when the tax system is under sustained attack from the major accountancy firms on behalf of their corporate clients during a recession; believes that those accountancy firms offering tax avoidance products and advice should be excluded from tendering for public sector contracts until they stop serving this highly destructive and socially irresponsible corporate habit; and calls on the Government to respond formally to the Guardian's findings as part of a wholesale review of the corporate tax system. ]
	This will be of use to fellow parliamentarians, who are beset by many items of work at all times. Can we have a statement on the topic from my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to Treasury, or better still a debate in Government time? The annual hole in the public accounts, which has to be filled by tax paid by families and small and medium-sized enterprises, is at least £12 billion; that equates to about 4p on the standard rate of income tax. It is a scandal and a disgrace, and we really ought to be doing more to combat it.

Harriet Harman: We all strongly believe that everyone should pay their fair share of taxes. It is objectionable for anyone to try to avoid paying tax, and is even more so when times are hard. People who are better off ought to step forward and take up their responsibilities for paying tax, not try to shirk them. Making sure that loopholes are plugged as soon as they are opened is a constant source of work in the Treasury. We have Treasury questions next week, when I suggest my hon. Friend raises with Treasury Ministers any further suggestions that he has for plugging tax loopholes.

Paul Burstow: In a week when much of the country has been paralysed by snow, my constituents in Sutton and Cheam and Worcester Park want to know why all the stations providing rail services into London were still closed on Tuesday. They also want to know why the railway industry seemed so singularly unprepared to cope with the adverse weather, despite the advance warnings that were given. Can we have a debate in Government time as soon as possible, so that we can explore contingency and resilience planning by Network Rail, Government Departments and local authorities?

Harriet Harman: I am sure that all the organisations concerned will be seeking to learn lessons from their response to what everyone recognises was unprecedented weather. Perhaps I shall ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport to issue a written ministerial statement about the lessons that will be learned and how these issues will be taken forward.

Mary Creagh: Can we have a debate—perhaps a topical debate—on the weather? I pay tribute to my own council in Wakefield, which gritted 1,400 km of snow-covered roads, but it is clear from the experiences of other hon. Members that that was not the case across the country. We have civil contingency plans for terror attacks and floods, but when we get three inches of snow, the buses stop working, the teachers stay at home, and Parliament goes home early. Many people do not get paid if they do not go to work. We need to debate all these issues and make sure that in the 21st century, the world's seventh-largest economy can deal with three inches of snow.

Harriet Harman: Obviously, I join my hon. Friend in congratulating Wakefield council on its response to the extreme weather. Lessons need to be learned, and no doubt they will be, but we must also recognise that many people made great efforts to get into work, despite the emergency weather conditions. Hospitals were running and the House of Commons had business as usual, although the Liberal Democrats were kind enough to foreshorten their debate and bring it to a close half an hour early—

Robert Smith: An hour early.

Harriet Harman: They closed the debate an hour early, which allowed those who had come in to keep the House open to get home on time.

Nicholas Winterton: During questions to the hon. Member representing the Church Commissioners, my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Robert Key) raised the unfair and ridiculous charge for the disposal of surface water that is being levied by water authorities. In the north-west, United Utilities has temporarily lifted that charge from small sporting clubs and places of worship and from the premises used by organisations such as the scouts and guides. Bearing that in mind, will the relevant Minister come forward at an early date to make it clear that the Government will cancel that fee and charge, with immediate effect?

Harriet Harman: I shall refer the relevant Ministers to the points raised by the hon. Gentleman and in earlier questions.

Richard Younger-Ross: On Monday, the Mayor of London said that the problem was not the wrong sort of snow but that there was just too much of it. Does the Leader of the House accept that glib excuse for the chaos in the capital city that followed? Will she listen to the points made by my hon. Friends the Members for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) and for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow), and by the hon. Members for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) and for Ealing, Acton and Shepherd's Bush (Mr. Slaughter), and enable us to have an early debate on the chaos that followed when we had a little bit of snow?

Harriet Harman: What people in London wanted was a gritting lorry rather than a soundbite. I can only repeat that we must learn the lessons from what happened. We will have to review what happened as a result of what were unprecedented weather conditions.

Ian Liddell-Grainger: The past few days have shown that upland hill farmers have had a pretty tough time, especially in the midlands and through Somerset and Exmoor, which I represent. Can we have a debate in Government time on the desperate situation of upland hill farmers, which has worsened over successive years? If we want to keep the United Kingdom's upland landscape beautiful, please may we discuss how those farmers can be helped by the Government?

Harriet Harman: I think that that would be a good topic for a Westminster Hall debate, and I shall bring it to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Roger Gale: In light of the right hon. and learned Lady's earlier remarks, may I place on record my self-sacrificial willingness to step forward and serve as a Minister in the Lords, if the appropriate arrangements can be made—but under the next Government, not this one?
	Mr. Speaker, you were in the Chair on Monday when my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) and I put questions to successive Ministers from the Department for Work and Pensions. There were two Ministers, and two completely contradictory answers were given. Some 1,700 ex-pat UK citizens, all of them by implication disabled, are waiting for payment of disability and related benefits. The matter is to be determined by the European Court of Justice, and the Government have been sitting on the problem for months. Given the confusion caused on Monday, will the Leader of the House ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to come to the Dispatch Box to make a statement, so that we know what the position actually is?

Harriet Harman: I shall ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to write to the hon. Gentleman to clarify the situation following oral questions on Monday.

Bob Russell: Two months ago, in a written statement, the Secretary of State for International Development said that there would be a pause in the negotiations for an airport on the island of St. Helena, which the Government had long promised and for which the contract was about to be awarded. Two months is more than a pause. Will the Leader of the House arrange for the Secretary of State to come to the House and hold a debate on why there has been such a long delay to the promised airport on St. Helena?

Harriet Harman: The Secretary of State will come to the House next Wednesday. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman seeks an opportunity to ask him about the issue then.

Patrick Cormack: In a week when a devoted community nurse was suspended from her duties for wanting to pray for one of her patients and then the BBC, which is even more misguided than that nurse's health authority, dismissed an eminent broadcaster for a remark made in the green room, while retaining the odious Jonathan Ross on £6 million a year, is it not time that we had a debate on the utter absurdities of political correctness?

Harriet Harman: On the question of the nurse, whose case was reported in the newspapers, the matter is, I presume, a disciplinary issue for her employers. On the BBC, whether or not material is offensive is a question for trustees of the BBC.

Andrew Rosindell: Further to the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alan Duncan), will the Leader of the House invite the Flag Institute to go to No. 10 Downing street to provide a training module for the Prime Minister, the noble Lord Mandelson and Downing street officials, to ensure that the embarrassing incident in which the flag of our country was displayed upside down in front of the Chinese Prime Minister never occurs again? Also, will she enable a debate to be held so that we in this country can consider introducing a flag Act similar to that in Australia, so that such a thing is not allowed to happen again and so that the procedure and protocol can be clearly laid down?

Harriet Harman: Consideration has been given to the question of flags in the debate on the constitutional renewal Bill. As and when any such Bill is introduced, no doubt the hon. Gentleman and colleagues who agree with him can table amendments.

Julian Lewis: May we have a statement or a debate—or even, if we cannot have those, an expression of opinion from the Leader of the House—on the improper use of written statements as a substitute for ministerial statements made on the Floor of the House? I have in mind the written statement made on the postponement of the building programme for the two aircraft carriers. I know that the right hon. and learned Lady did her best to promise us that we could raise the issue in the armed forces debate held a week ago, but in the end, Mr. Speaker quite understandably decided that we could not. Will she at least try to send a signal to Ministers that, in future, when there is an important matter to be announced to the House, we should be able to question them, rather than the announcement being sneaked out as a written statement?

Harriet Harman: I do not think that there is any intention to sneak out information by way of written statements. If information is put in a written statement, it is laid before the House, so it is not sneaked out at all; it is put in the public domain. Ministers and I, as Leader of the House, have to share the decision on whether time is needed for the Second Reading of an important Bill, the remaining stages of a controversial Bill, or Opposition day debates. There has been an unprecedented number of statements, not least because of statements from the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and the Treasury on the economic situation, as well as a number of statements from the Home Office. We have to be careful to ensure that the main business of the House is not too squeezed by statements.
	It is a question of striking a balance. I know that the hon. Gentleman takes such matters seriously, so I will be prompted by his question to review the balance between written and oral statements, and the balance between oral statements and the rest of the business of the House, to make sure that we get both right. I absolutely assure him that we are proud of our procurement from the important industries that provide for our armed services. There is no way that we would want to sweep that under the carpet.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: The Leader of the House will be aware that I raised a point of order last night about the dwindling supplies of salt and grit in the country. Gloucestershire is in a particularly difficult situation: it has a 72-hour contract with Salt Union, but has been told that it may not get another supply next Tuesday, so it is severely rationing the number of roads that it can salt, which has implications for road safety. Will the Leader of the House guarantee to bring that to the attention of the Secretary of State at the Department of Communities and Local Government today? If conditions deteriorate over the weekend, will she ask the Secretary of State to come and make a statement to the House? Clearly, we cannot have a situation in which the country is running out of salt.

Harriet Harman: As the hon. Gentleman knows, unprecedented demands have been made on the stocks of salt, and difficult decisions about priorities have to be made. I think that it is a matter of the Department for Transport working with the Department for Communities and Local Government, agencies such as the Highways Agency and local government bodies to make sure that we can replenish stocks and ensure that salt supplies are where they are needed.

Andrew Murrison: Will the Leader of the House clarify the statement that she made in December and again on 13 January that when a debate is on armed forces personnel, the title should be interpreted broadly? She will understand that one can no more debate soldiers, sailors and airmen without debating the kit that they use than one can debate teachers or nurses without debating schools or hospitals. Will she confirm that in future, in debates on armed forces personnel, we can debate the equipment that they use and on which they rely?

Harriet Harman: Traditionally, the House has debated armed services personnel separately from armed forces procurement; that has been the custom and practice. As for the scope or remit of any particular debate, that is obviously a matter for the Speaker. If the Defence Committee makes proposals on the subject, or if colleagues in the House want to make suggestions for change, that can be considered.

Tobias Ellwood: Mr. Speaker, like you, I hope, on Monday, when Britain came to a halt, I decided to run to work. [Hon. Members: "From Bournemouth?"] Absolutely. When I arrived, I found that it was not business as usual, as the Leader of the House claims. The car park was shut. When I asked the policeman why it was shut, he said that the 15-metre ramp leading down to it was covered with snow. When I asked why the snow had not been removed, he said that there was no contract for it. When I asked him to join me in removing the snow, he said, "No, it's against health and safety." Setting aside the issues of community that that raises, may I endorse the calls for a debate on how Britain copes with snow, starting with how we deal with it here in the Palace of Westminster?

Harriet Harman: I drove in on Monday, and I drove straight into the car park— [Interruption]—so I do not know what the hon. Gentleman is talking about. I do not know what his hon. Friends are talking about, either—no change there.

Jeremy Wright: Now that we have a national dementia strategy for England, the long-awaited arrival of which was announced to the world by the Secretary of State for Health on the "Andrew Marr Show", and to the House by written, not oral, statement on Tuesday, may we please have a debate on it in Government time, so that the people who are affected can hear the House discuss what is not in the strategy and how what is in it can be implemented and paid for?

Harriet Harman: I shall take that as a suggestion for a future topical debate. I hope that all hon. Members welcome the national dementia strategy and the further announcement that was made. Of course, we will need to make progress on the issue; not everything was announced in one go. Rather than decrying what is not in the strategy, I ask the hon. Gentleman to welcome the important advances made by the national health service as part of the national dementia strategy.

Mark Harper: May I reiterate the calls for a statement to be made by a Minister about the country's salt stocks? The Leader of the House will be aware that yesterday the Minister for Local Government responded to the points of order raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) and myself. He said at column 938 that the Highways Agency had sufficient stocks available to make
	"at least a day's worth available to local... authorities"—[ Official Report, 4 February 2009; Vol. 487, c. 938.]
	That is not the case in the Highways Agency south-west region. There are not sufficient stocks. Gloucestershire has been put in a very difficult position, which will impact on businesses and families across the area. Ministers should come to the House to say what the national position is. They do not have a clear understanding of it and we need to be able to question them appropriately.

Harriet Harman: We have a very important statement, followed by a debate on Sri Lanka and another on Afghanistan and Pakistan, so it would not be right to have an oral statement today, but I will ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport to consider a written statement and hon. Members can pursue issues afterwards.

Julian Brazier: May I ask for another debate on port rating? A fortnight ago the Minister for Local Government told the House that most of the money had gone to port owners, but at Question Time last week, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Poplar and Canning Town (Jim Fitzpatrick), assured us in the strongest possible language that that was not the case. The day afterwards, in an Adjournment debate on port rating, the Minister for Local Government, despite hearing that read to him twice from  Hansard, repeated his assertion. Meanwhile, businesses are going bust on the Mersey, on the Humber and in other parts of the country. May we have a debate to sort this out?

Harriet Harman: By his question, the hon. Gentleman has shown that the issue, which I know is of concern around the House, has been raised on numerous occasions, and there will be another opportunity to raise it in Treasury questions next week.

Graham Stuart: Following the mention by the spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath), may we have an urgent debate on the freeze in funding of further education colleges and their plans? For example, the regeneration of Beverley depends very much on the East Riding college move to Flemingate, and I know that Hull college, which serves my constituency and areas of Hull, also has plans and has spent a lot of money on the basis of Government promises. May we have a debate to ensure that the promises made to FE colleges will be honoured by the Government?

Harriet Harman: We have put unprecedented investment into further and higher education, and we intend to continue to do that, particularly on the capital side. We intend to bring forward the investment programme and we are working with colleges and the relevant agencies to do exactly that.

John Bercow: May we please have a debate in Government time on the Floor of the House on the plight of the thalidomide victims? Given that there are 457 remaining victims in the United Kingdom, that in many cases their health is progressively deteriorating, and that the cost of domestic adaptations to enable them to perform sometimes simply basic tasks, let alone to live rewarding lives and to fulfil themselves, is so extortionately high, is it not time that the House considered whether we favour a publicly funded compensation scheme, analogous to those in Canada, Germany, Ireland and Sweden?

Harriet Harman: The hon. Gentleman raises an important topic. Everybody remembers the shameful situation of the drug companies trying to evade their responsibilities to those who had suffered because of the drug thalidomide. As a first step, I suggest the hon. Gentleman raises the issue in Health questions next week.

Philip Hollobone: With my constituency under 6 inches of early morning snow, making minor roads impassable, my constituents understand why all the local schools are closed today. However, they do not understand why half the local schools were closed on Tuesday, when the roads were icy but passable. Will the Leader of the House make sure that there is a topical debate next Thursday and that the debate is on Britain's reaction to adverse weather conditions?

Harriet Harman: In the first instance, the hon. Gentleman should raise the matter with his local council. If he is unhappy with the response, perhaps he can take it up with the Department for Transport.

Binyam Mohamed

David Miliband: With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a statement to the House on the case of Mr. Binyam Mohamed, following the judgment handed down yesterday in the High Court.
	The fundamentals of the case are as follows. Mr. Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian national formerly resident in the UK, was arrested in Pakistan in 2002. In 2004 he was transferred to Guantanamo Bay. Until August 2007, the Government had taken responsibility for the release and return of British nationals from Guantanamo Bay. In August 2007, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and I wrote to then US Secretary of State to seek Mr. Mohamed's release from Guantanamo Bay and his return to the United Kingdom, along with four other former UK residents. Over the past 18 months, we have mounted what the Court has called a strenuous effort to achieve that objective. We have throughout kept Mr. Mohamed's family and lawyers informed of his situation and our efforts to resolve it.
	The United States brought terrorist charges against Mr. Mohamed in May last year before a military commission. Mr. Mohamed subsequently brought proceedings against the British Government in an effort to secure the disclosure to his legal counsel of any material held by the British Government that might assist the defence of his case before the military commission. Having looked through all the material that we held across government, we provided through the appropriate legal and statutory mechanisms a great deal of both classified and unclassified UK information.
	Among the information we held, however, we identified some highly classified US intelligence material. We took the view that the material was potentially exculpatory and ought to be disclosed to Mr. Mohamed's legal counsel. As this was sensitive US Government material, we informed the relevant US authorities of our view; we also informed Mr. Mohamed's counsel. We have worked since then to ensure that all the material was, indeed, made available to Mr. Mohamed's legal counsel by the US Government through their own procedures.
	Across the four judgments handed down by the High Court since last August, the Court has explicitly recognised the efforts of the Government both to secure Mr. Mohamed's release and return, and to ensure that the material that we considered ought to be disclosed to him was, indeed, disclosed. The latter objective was achieved some time ago, when the US Department of Justice disclosed the material to Mr. Mohamed's counsel in the course of proceedings in the US federal courts.
	At the heart of Mr. Mohamed's case have been allegations that he was tortured by foreign Government officials in a number of locations. It is the long-standing policy of this Government that we never condone, authorise or co-operate in torture. I repeat that commitment today. We also take very seriously all allegations of torture and investigate them fully. Allegations have been made in the course of these legal proceedings that the UK is in some way complicit in the alleged mistreatment of Mr. Mohamed.
	Following the Court's judgment of 22 October, on 23 October last year my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary referred the question of possible criminal wrongdoing to the Attorney-General. That question is now being considered by the Attorney-General. That is, as the Court acknowledged yesterday, the proper democratic and legal process.
	Yesterday's judgment was not about that, however. It was about whether an English court should, in the interests of public debate and understanding, order the disclosure to the general public of sensitive foreign intelligence shared with our own intelligence agencies on the strict understanding that it would not be released. As anyone who has read the judgments will appreciate, in circumstances in which Mr. Mohamed's access to the information relevant to his defence had been secured, the sole question for my consideration concerned the publication of classified material received from a foreign intelligence service—in this case, the US.
	The question at issue was whether intelligence provided on a confidential basis by one state to another, in absolute trust that it will be kept secure, may be disclosed to the public by order of a foreign court, or whether instead, the breach of trust would be so grave as to endanger intelligence-sharing relationships and therefore affect national security. In this case it was US intelligence and an English court, but it could just as easily be British intelligence in a foreign court.
	I had before me the clear and unanimous advice of all key UK Departments and agencies. As the Court observed yesterday,
	"Intelligence is shared on the basis of a reciprocal understanding that the confidence in and control over it will always be retained by the State that provides it. It is a fundamental part of that trust and confidentiality which lies at the heart of the relationship with foreign intelligence agencies".
	Our intelligence relationship with the United States is vital to the national security of the United Kingdom. It is essential that the ability of the United States to communicate such material in confidence to the UK is protected. Without such confidence the US will simply not share that material with us.
	The same applies to our intelligence relationships with all those who share intelligence information with us. And what applies to them also applies to us. We share intelligence with a large number of countries. We do so to protect British citizens, and we do so on the basis that the material will not be put into the public domain against our wishes. To state the obvious, were our own classified information to be disclosed in such a way, it could compromise our work, our sources and therefore our security. It therefore was and remains my judgment that the disclosure of the intelligence documents at issue, by order of our courts and against the wishes of the US authorities, would indeed cause real and significant damage to the national security and international relations of this country.
	For the record, the United States authorities did not threaten to "break off" intelligence co-operation with the UK. What the United States said—and it appears in the open, public documents of this case—is that disclosure of the documents by order of our courts would be
	"likely to result in serious damage to US national security and could harm existing intelligence information-sharing...between our two governments".
	That is a simple affirmation of the facts of intelligence co-operation and it is worth noting that last night, in response to the High Court judgment, the US National Security Council reaffirmed the long-standing US position concerning the importance of protecting sensitive national security information and preserving the long-standing intelligence-sharing relationship between our two countries.
	The Court has concluded that there is no prejudice—I repeat, no prejudice—to Mr. Mohamed's case as a result of yesterday's judgment. The information in question is available to his US legal counsel. As the Court said,
	"upholding the rule of law...is most unlikely to depend on making the information public".
	The issue at stake is not the content of the intelligence material, but the principle at the heart of all intelligence relationships: that a country should retain control of its intelligence information, and that that cannot be disclosed by foreign authorities without its consent. That is a principle that we neglect at our peril.

William Hague: Let us be clear at the outset that we are united across the House on so many of the issues that this case illuminates. We all believe that it is right that the Guantanamo Bay detention centre should be closed and that torture is unacceptable under any circumstances. Many of us have criticised the use of extraordinary rendition and the possibility that it can sometimes lead to torture in a third country. The case of Binyam Mohamed illustrates why we have all had those concerns. He has been detained for nearly eight years and has not yet been brought to trial, although he is accused of terrorist offences.
	As the Foreign Secretary said, the Government have sought the return of Binyam Mohamed to Britain since August 2007, but the US authorities have declined to release him. May I ask the Foreign Secretary whether he raised the issue of Mr. Mohamed's return during his visit to the United States on Tuesday? Have the new Administration indicated whether they will now accede to that request? What assessment has been made of any threat that that would present to the public in this country?
	The High Court ruled that Mr. Mohamed
	"had an arguable case that he had been subject to torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment"
	and that the British security services had facilitated interviews of Mr. Mohamed "in the knowledge" of what had been reported to them about his treatment.
	In a letter to my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington), dated 29 September last year, the then Minister of State, the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells), said that the Government had raised the allegations of torture with the US and "asked them to investigate". Has the Foreign Secretary received any response from the United States authorities about the outcome of those investigations? In the same letter, the then Minister stated that the Government
	"rejects any allegation that UK Security and Intelligence officials have been complicit in torture".
	Can the Foreign Secretary give the same assurance to the House today—that it is still his and the Government's firm view that there has been no complicity by UK security and intelligence officials in torture?
	According to the High Court ruling of August last year, the Government were made aware in 2002 by a UK security official present at the interview of detainees held by the US, including Mr. Mohamed, that detainees
	"may not have been treated in accordance with the appropriate standards".
	The ruling contains an extract from a letter sent to that official by his superiors, saying that as the detainees in question
	"were not within our custody or control, the law does not require you to intervene to prevent this".
	That may be the case in legal terms, but in moral terms the Government were surely obliged to make the strongest representations to the United States Government against that form of treatment. Were such representations made?
	My remaining questions concern the immensely important issue, which the Foreign Secretary has described, of intelligence co-operation between the US and the UK. Will the Foreign Secretary confirm—in a way, he has confirmed it in his statement—that that relationship is unique in the world and of immense value not only to the UK but to the United States? Will he confirm that the disruption of that relationship would have serious consequences for the US as well as for this country?
	Lord Justice Thomas expressed dismay at the
	"threat of the gravity of the kind made by the United States Government that it would reconsider its intelligence sharing relationship"
	with the UK. The Foreign Secretary has reiterated that no threat of that kind was made. Is he suggesting that the Court of Appeal has misrepresented the United States position? Most importantly of all in my view, the Prime Minister's spokesman said yesterday:
	"We have not engaged with the new Administration on the detail of this case."
	Is it correct that the Government have had no discussions with the Obama Administration on this issue?
	Looking to how matters should now proceed, consistent with the strong and welcome stance of the new US Administration on torture and with our own views in this House, may I finish by pressing the Foreign Secretary on this point? Should not the view of the High Court that
	"the requirements of open justice, the rule of law and democratic accountability demonstrate the very considerable public interest in making the redacted paragraphs public"
	weigh heavily with all of us, and with our American allies, particularly if the view of the Court—that nothing in the redacted paragraphs could possibly be described as highly sensitive, classified United States intelligence—is correct?
	Given the change of Administration in the US two weeks ago, the changes in policy that have resulted and the changes of personnel in the CIA in the past fortnight, would it not be right to put it to the US Administration that they could change their approach to this case without fundamentally breaching the principle of which the Foreign Secretary has rightly spoken? Would not asking them even now to change their position be a way forward that we could all support in the House?

David Miliband: The right hon. Gentleman is right that the House is united in respect of the closure of Guantanamo Bay, action against torture and the rejection of extraordinary rendition. The Government have taken practical steps to put that into practice.
	The right hon. Gentleman's first and seventh questions related to our engagement with the US Administration about what he called "this case". I want to be absolutely clear: I did indeed raise the case of the remaining Guantanamo detainees with British residency status when I met Secretary Clinton on Tuesday. I confirmed and reiterated to her that we remain determined to secure their release and return. The right hon. Gentleman may have slightly misspoken; the previous Administration had acceded to that request and the current Administration are continuing to commit themselves to the request for release and return. So Mr. Mohamed will indeed be coming back to the United Kingdom, and that raises precisely the questions of security and the arrangements for that that the right hon. Gentleman led into. I assure him that we are going to make sure that the return of Mr. Mohamed—after eight years, as the right hon. Gentleman says—is done in full accordance not just with his rights but with British security considerations.
	In respect of the right hon. Gentleman's quotation about the "arguable case", I should say that the investigations of the US system are continuing. The system is, of course, very complicated. First of all there are the military commissions, then there are the federal courts and then there is the decision of the Obama Administration to wind up Guantanamo and the system of military commissions. The right thing to say is that those investigations remain at the heart of cases in the US system and of cases being brought in our system. Those investigations continue.
	In respect of the allegations of British complicity, those matters, as my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary made clear on 23 October, are now with the Attorney-General, who is consulting the Director of Public Prosecutions.
	The right hon. Gentleman's fourth question was about the representations that we have made in respect of allegations of torture. He cited one particular case from 2002, and before I answer specifically on that I want to go back to make sure that we give him exactly the right answer. However, our representations in respect of torture have always been clear in public and in private. I give him the example of the debate last year about the question of whether water-boarding constituted torture. We were absolutely clear in public and in private that in our view it did constitute torture, and that it was reprehensible on that basis. I can assure him that the British Government have remained fully engaged on that issue.
	In respect of the unique intelligence-sharing relationship, that is indeed very important. The Intelligence and Security Committee has commented on the value of that relationship at various points. I think that the word "threat" was used by the Court of Appeal. Given the facts that I described—that the intelligence-sharing relationship is based on confidentiality, that if another country gave away our secrets that could not but have an implication for the way in which we judged the amount of material to share with it, and that the Americans have made it clear in public documents that they would see serious and lasting harm from the disclosure in our courts of their information—it is clear that the relationship would be affected; but it is the Court that used the word "threat".
	Finally, there is the question of an American decision about what to disclose in public. I emphasise that it must be an American decision. Only they can make a decision about whether sources—their own or others—are compromised by the disclosure, in the same way that only we can make decisions about whether our information, disclosed to the public, would involve the compromise of sources. To that extent, I am not going to join a lobbying campaign against the American Government on this decision. It is a decision that they have to make given their knowledge of the full facts about the sources on which they depend and do not want to compromise. I am clear that our decisions are for us and their decisions are for them.
	To that extent, this case hinges not on the content of the redacted paragraphs but on their nature, which is that they are American paragraphs—American evidence—in the same way that our intelligence sources are our property. We have approached the issue on that basis, which is the only basis on which to preserve the confidentiality and trust on which such a relationship depends.

Edward Davey: I thank the Foreign Secretary for his statement and for the support that he and his Department have given to Binyam Mohamed.
	The Foreign Secretary rightly says that his judgment is on the line—whether to take a threat, and it was a threat, of non-co-operation on future intelligence sharing from our closest ally seriously, or whether to allow information on criminal acts of torture to be published. Will he confirm that the Court makes it clear that the publication of the summary of intelligence reports under question would not have created a security risk to the United States—that it would not have revealed the name of any agent, the location of any secret establishment, or the methods of any intelligence gathering? The truth is that the question of the publication of this summary was not about security and intelligence but about whether to cover up torture, and United States interest in avoiding political embarrassment and potential criminal investigations against its security services. So we have the bizarre situation that this is not a threat to our security from terrorists, but a threat to our security posed by our closest ally over an issue relating to democratic accountability and the rule of law.
	Have the British Government not just rolled over in the face of a scarcely credible threat from a friend? Have both this Government and President Bush's Administration not confused intelligence with abuse, security with the rule of law, and secrecy with cover-up? Why did the Foreign Secretary not make it clear to our American friends that this country's opposition to torture meant that we would have nothing to do with intelligence gathered that way? Is it not our international legal duty not only to refrain from torture but to bring those who torture to justice—that this country's long-term security is best protected when we uphold human rights and the rule of law, and when it comes to upholding the values that Britain and America are supposed to share, this country will not be bullied into shabby and shady compromise? Was not President Obama right to say in his inauguration speech,
	"we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals"?
	When the Foreign Secretary raised this with Secretary Clinton, did he ask specifically, as the judges' final sentence says,
	"for the United States government to consider changing its position or itself putting that information into the public domain"?
	On the question of whether British security services have been complicit in torture, I hope that the investigations of the ISC and the Attorney-General will provide answers. However, in issuing a public interest immunity certificate in this case, the answer of this House must be that the Foreign Secretary has stood in the way of allowing justice to take its course.

David Miliband: These cases are indeed illuminating, not only of the judgment of Ministers but of the judgment of those who would aspire to be Ministers. Although there was a very large lack of questions in the rant by the hon. Gentleman, I will go through his points.
	First, the hon. Gentleman has a fundamental confusion between that which is necessary for justice, which is that the defence counsel has full access to all the documents that are necessary for that justice to be achieved, and the interest—which is a perfectly legitimate one to put—in public debate.

Edward Davey: indicated dissent.

David Miliband: The hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but I am sorry—justice is served by the individual in question having his rights to a proper trial, and that is served by his having full access to the 42 documents that are at issue. The 42 documents that are referred to were given to the defence counsel for Binyam Mohamed in significant part as a result of the representations of this Government. That is the way in which Government are served. When the hon. Gentleman talks, as he did in his first few seconds, about a cover-up of torture, he is neglecting the fact, first, that Binyam Mohamed's lawyers were given that documentation, and secondly, that the Attorney-General is looking in detail at whether there is anything complicit about the United Kingdom's role in this case.
	Secondly, the hon. Gentleman said—it is worth the House looking at this when  Hansard is published—that the threat to our national security came not from sources that we debate often in this House, whether terrorism or elsewhere, but from our closest ally, which the Intelligence and Security Committee has said is critical to saving British lives because of the intelligence that it provides. When he has had a chance to look at his remarks, he will realise that one cannot on one hand quote President Obama's inaugural speech, and deny on the other hand what his National Security Council says. I am happy to stick by what President Obama said. The National Security Council, which sits in the White House, speaks for the US Government—

David Heath: You have not asked them.

David Miliband: The hon. Gentleman shouts that we have not asked them. They made a public statement last night about this case, and they have been absolutely, resolutely clear about this case.
	Finally, the position of the Government in never condoning, co-operating in or authorising torture is absolute, and our fulfilment of our international responsibilities in that respect, moral and legal, is absolute. That is why we never condone, co-operate in or authorise torture, and why any allegations thereto are taken with the utmost seriousness and investigated by the highest legal authorities in the land.

Several hon. Members: rose —

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. As many Members are clearly hoping to catch my eye, could I please ask for single questions, not statements, and perhaps concise replies?

Karen Buck: As my right hon. Friend is aware, Binyam Mohamed was resident in my constituency. I would like to put on record the fact that I am grateful for the very regular and extensive briefings that I have had over the past year from Foreign Office officials. Of course, these allegations are of the gravest kind and warrant legal and parliamentary scrutiny. It is also true that Mr. Mohamed is very frail and very sick. We were led to believe very recently that his release was imminent. What urgent steps is my right hon. Friend taking to ensure that my constituent is released from illegal detention and returned to this country as soon as possible?

David Miliband: We are pursuing his return at the highest level, including in discussions with Secretary Clinton and with the appropriate US authorities. I understand the urgency that my hon. Friend has brought to this case. We share that sense of urgency, and we are working as fast and as hard as we can. It is not only she who has paid tribute to that—the lawyers for Binyam Mohamed have also written to us about the efforts of Foreign Office officials to ensure his return to the UK.

Edward Garnier: May I assure the Foreign Secretary that I entirely accept the points that he has made about the need to be sensitive with intelligence sharing, for the reasons that he has outlined? None of us is so naive as to think that it would be sensible to do anything but that. However, when he and the Attorney-General have finished investigating allegations of British complicity with unlawful rendition and torture—if that is what he is doing—if there is a case to be answered, will it be answered in public, not subjected to some form of secret process?

David Miliband: The hon. and learned Gentleman speaks with some authority on these matters. The case now before the Attorney-General relates to the allegation of complicity and torture—it is not a case of rendition. The Attorney-General has been brought in on the basis of the representation made by the Home Secretary as soon as the Court issued its judgment in October. I want to get the precise legal processes clear, but I assure him that it will be done according to the law of the land and under the way in which processes are set out to defend the rights of the individual and British justice in this case.

Kim Howells: Given that my right hon. Friend informed us that confidentiality in the handling of information between agencies is a cornerstone of all intelligence relationships—especially the one between this country and its most important ally, the United States—and that, as the judges say, release of the information at issue here would come through not the United Kingdom but the United States, will he confirm that allegations about the complicity of our agencies in this case must be referred to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, which is the only body with the legal power to investigate fully any allegation of misconduct by the UK agencies? Does he accept that the Intelligence and Security Committee's continuing investigations into our agencies' policy in respect of the US rendition programme may be helped if we were given the 42 documents mentioned by the judges? The ISC, my Committee, has not yet seen them, contrary to what the judgment says.

David Miliband: Absolutely. I think that I am right in saying that anyone can make representations to the tribunal, and that remains the case, but the Home Secretary has referred the matter to the Attorney-General, and since last summer, when these documents came to light, the Foreign Office has attempted at every stage of the development of this case to keep the ISC informed in a full and open way, and that is our determination for the future.

David Davis: What the Foreign Secretary has been saying today seems almost entirely inconsistent with what was said by the judges yesterday. He said that the information that they want to reveal is highly classified secret intelligence. They say in terms, in paragraph 68, that it could not possibly be considered as
	"highly sensitive classified US intelligence".
	He says in absolute terms that it is covered by secrecy requirements of intelligence sharing—we all understand the basis of that. They reiterate the argument of the special advocates, which says that there can be
	"no confidentiality in evidence tending to show the commission of a crime",
	that
	"the redacted paragraphs should be made public",
	and that
	"To do otherwise would be to conceal the gist of the evidence of serious wrongdoing by the United States which had been facilitated in part by the United Kingdom Government."
	That is the substance of the argument today.
	The question that the Foreign Secretary must answer is this: did he, or did he not, give the judges reason to say no fewer than eight times—not once, but eight times—that there was either a threat or a grave threat of intelligence being withheld either in his public or secret representations? He has reiterated a point today, from paragraph 11 of his own public immunity application, when quoting a letter from John Bellinger, which says in terms that the public disclosure of this information
	"could harm existing intelligence information-sharing arrangements between our two Governments."
	Is that, or is that not, a threat, and will he please seek to get it lifted?

David Miliband: The end of the right hon. Gentleman's question belied the beginning of it. The end of his statement showed the absolute consistency of what I said in my representations to the Court and in the case that I have made in the House today. The issue at hand is a simple one. Highly classified information was sent by the US, which is highly classified because of its contents, but the point at issue that I and the Court had to address is that intelligence sharing is based on a principle. It is based on the nature of the relationship that we have, and the nature of that relationship is not dependent on one cable or another, but on the fact that if another country cannot have confidence that its secrets are safe with us, it will not share its secrets with us in an open and transparent way with the relevant authorities.
	In the same way, I am sure that if our secrets were disclosed in a foreign court—dare I say, in another European court—against our wishes, the right hon. Gentleman would be up in arms, rightly in my view, protesting against the invasion by a foreign court of our right to keep our sources secret. If he reflects on his position, and not just on mine, he will see that the inconsistency is his rather than mine.

Keith Vaz: I thank the Foreign Secretary for his statement and for the strenuous efforts made by the Government on behalf of Mr. Mohamed. He mentioned several times the investigation by the Attorney-General, and she has had this case before her for the past three months. In view of the public interest in this matter, can either he or the Home Secretary contact the Attorney-General to see whether the process can be completed as quickly as possible?

David Miliband: I am sure that the Attorney-General will not have failed to notice the public interest in this case during the past 24 hours, or failed to notice the representations made by my right hon. Friend today. In case she has, I will be sure to draw them to her attention.

Charles Kennedy: Following on from that question, and the two earlier ones on exactly the same point, why does not the Foreign Secretary confirm that when the Government receive the advice from the Attorney-General sought by the Home Secretary on 23 October, they will make it available to the ISC, and to the House and the public generally, given what is now the public nature of the entire process?
	On that issue, incidentally, we are also waiting to hear from the Government about the recent Information Tribunal ruling against them—again—on making available the then Attorney-General's advice and the Cabinet minutes relevant to the decision on the war on Iraq. Do the Government intend to appeal on that matter to the High Court, or to apply a veto under existing freedom of information legislation?

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I think that the final remarks of the right hon. Member are beyond the scope of this statement.

Charles Kennedy: It was worth a try.

David Miliband: As the right hon. Gentleman says, it was worth a try, but probably not worth a response. We will come back to that matter on another occasion.
	In respect of the earlier parts of the right hon. Gentleman's remarks, it is dangerous for one non-lawyer to tell another non-lawyer about the legal situation, but he referred to "advice" from the Attorney-General. That is not correct. The Attorney-General has to decide whether there is a case for prosecution, so it is a question not of whether advice should be published, but of whether steps should be taken on the basis of a decision by the Attorney-General, as the highest legal authority in the land. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman was not under any misapprehension about what I said earlier. The Government's commitment to the ISC—which has been repaid in full by the ISC in the way in which it has treated the information that we give to it—is to be full and open in our disclosures to it, and where information is of a highly sensitive nature, it is not published but the ISC do see it and scrutinise it. That must be the right way of working.

Andrew Dismore: On the potentially exculpatory material to which my right hon. Friend referred, would he at least go as far as to say, in general terms, whether it included evidence of torture? If so, that would fit the pattern of the cogent evidence that the Joint Committee on Human Rights received on Tuesday afternoon about allegations of torture committed by the Pakistan security services, and the complicity of UK agents in that. Although my right hon. Friend may see no evil and hear no evil, that does not mean that the evil of torture does not exist. Would he ensure that the JCHR gets full co-operation in our inquiry into UK compliance with the requirements of the United Nations convention against torture in these matters?

David Miliband: I am sorry if my hon. Friend sees the referral of an allegation of mistreatment to the Attorney-General, the highest authority in our land, as a "hear no evil, see no evil" approach. The suggestion of the evil of torture is what has prompted the referral to the Attorney-General, who can then decide whether there is a case for criminal prosecution of the individuals involved. Far from this matter ending up on a shelf, the Attorney-General will decide where to take it.
	My hon. Friend showed through his early comments that this area is extremely complex and one where broad-brush statements have to be chosen with great caution. I say to him that the material is highly classified and that the aspects of complicity in torture elsewhere are published in the appropriate legal documents, and I refer him back to those.

Patrick Mercer: The Foreign Secretary will of course be aware that Mr. Binyam Mohamed is one of, I believe, two British residents who are still left in Guantanamo Bay. There are suggestions that the other several dozen prisoners should be removed from United States soil and dispersed around welcoming countries elsewhere. Will he tell the House what the British Government's position on that is, and whether they have yet received any requests from the Obama regime?

David Miliband: We have not received such requests. When I spoke to the new US Secretary of State on Tuesday, I explained to her what we had done and that we expected two further former British residents to come back to the UK. In the words that I used at the European General Affairs Council last week, I explained that we had "done our bit" by bringing back 13 residents, which will become 15, but that we wanted to play our part in helping other countries to fulfil their commitment to helping the US close Guantanamo Bay.
	I promised my European Foreign Minister colleagues last week that we were happy to share our experience of bringing those people back, and I can tell the hon. Gentleman that a number of European countries have already asked for our help on that. We want to help them do it, because they recognise their need to help the Americans close Guantanamo Bay.

Ann Clwyd: The judges argued yesterday that it was
	"difficult to conceive that a democratically elected and accountable government could possibly have any rational objection"
	to placing on record
	"a summary of what its own officials reported as to how a detainee was treated by them".
	The Foreign Secretary has said that he has spoken to Hillary Clinton, but is he prepared to ask President Obama personally for permission to release that information; otherwise, people in this country will continue to question the secrecy that surrounds the decision?

David Miliband: My right hon. Friend shares with the Government not just a very strong commitment to upholding human rights around the world but the belief that where there has been error, there should be openness as a way of trying to remedy it, at least in part. However, she asks in what circumstances continued secrecy is appropriate. It is when sources would be compromised by their release. It is for each country to determine the circumstances in which public release, not release to the defence counsel, would prejudice that position. That is the right and pragmatic approach to this case.

Andrew Tyrie: There are several paragraphs in the judgment that are extremely important for all of us to bear in mind, particularly for the Foreign Secretary. It states that it is
	"difficult to conceive that a democratically elected and accountable government could possibly have any rational objection to placing"
	the appropriate information
	"into the public domain...we did not consider that a democracy governed by the rule of law would expect a court in another democracy to suppress...evidence"
	of
	"allegations of torture...politically embarrassing though it might be."
	Will he therefore act on the suggestion of my right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary and ask for a specific exception to be made in this case from the US Administration?

David Miliband: I have genuine respect for the way in which the hon. Gentleman has developed an interest in, and followed in great detail, the issue of rendition over the past few years. I think that he has said that he has taken it up with some surprise, not having expected it to be so close to the centre of his work, and I have genuine respect for him on that basis. However, I refer him to the answer that I just gave to my right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) in respect of the paragraph that he has cited. Also, as I said earlier, I am not going to join a lobbying campaign—[Hon. Members: "Why not?"] Because the Obama Administration—

David Heath: It is your job.

David Miliband: No, my job is to take decisions. It is the hon. Gentleman's job to offer opinions, it is our job to take decisions.
	I am not going to join a lobbying campaign for a very simple reason. The Obama Administration have made clear not just their abhorrence of torture but their determination to do everything that they can to change the image of the United States around the world in this respect. They have a choice to make about whether to release many aspects of intelligence, in the same way that we do. They will not release it if it compromises their sources, and they will certainly not accede to its release through a foreign court. That is the right approach.
	The new Administration have made clear, in a way the hon. Gentleman will probably argue that the previous Administration did not, their determination to clear the name of the United States. In that context, it is right to give them the scope to make a decision about all the issues that they face, which are far from confined to this particular case. I remind the House that there are a number of outstanding legal issues in the United States system on such issues, and every case has to be seen in that context.

David Winnick: Is my right hon. Friend aware that for many of us, the core of the matter is simply Mr. Mohamed's claim that he was cruelly tortured abroad and that British security agents knew about and colluded in what occurred. If that is so—I note what the Foreign Secretary has said about the Attorney-General's inquiries—surely the values and the rule of law of which this country and the House are so proud were betrayed. That is the seriousness of the issue, and we obviously want an answer as quickly as possible.

David Miliband: I agree with my hon. Friend. These very important issues raise not just political and moral questions but judicial ones. A matter of potential criminal wrongdoing has been referred to the Attorney-General, so it is right that we allow her to come to her conclusions as quickly as possible, as my hon. Friend says.

Sarah Teather: I recognise the Foreign Secretary's role in arguing for British residents to return to the UK, as he is well aware, and I thank him for it. However, I am very disappointed to hear him repeat that he will not join in a lobbying campaign to get allegations of torture released into the public domain. Does he not recognise that it is the job of the Foreign Secretary to argue for British interests and values abroad? He says that he is against torture, so surely he should be using every power at his disposal to ensure that allegations and evidence of torture are put into the public domain.

David Miliband: There is a fundamental confusion over the position of the US Government. Far from denying that they are against torture, they are celebrating the fact that they are against it and want to do everything that they can to ensure that it is expunged from the rhetoric and role of the United States. Secondly, I am sorry to have to repeat to the hon. Lady that there remains a fundamental distinction between justice for individuals and the general public interest in the public revelation of secret information. We have to make that decision about our own information, and the US will make it about the information that it holds on the basis of whether it believes it furthers its goal of campaigning against torture, which we share.

Lynne Jones: Does my right hon. Friend share my concern that the former US Administration were prepared to use torture to extract information from detainees—information that, by definition, must be unreliable—yet ignored reliable information provided by one of the UK's top agents, Michael Shipster, through his long-standing source at the highest level of the Iraqi Government, that the Iraqi Government did not have weapons of mass destruction? That information also provided a credible explanation for Saddam Hussein's reluctance to admit that.

David Miliband: I was with my hon. Friend for the first half of her question. The differences that existed between this Government and the previous Administration were discussed widely, specifically on whether water-boarding constituted torture. Those differences were exemplified by the position that the Government took, which I think was shared elsewhere in the House, that it did. Our position is absolutely clear: we are signed up to international conventions and covenants, never mind national laws, in that respect. I think that the Iraq question is for another day.

Patrick Cormack: As one who believes that the Foreign Secretary has made a wise judgment and given the House a balanced statement, and who expects our Foreign Secretary to lead, not to lobby, may I nevertheless ask him for two assurances? First, will he make it abundantly plain that the Intelligence and Security Committee will have the 42 documents that its Chairman indicated it has not yet seen? Secondly, will he give the House an absolute undertaking that if, as a result of the Attorney-General's investigations, it appears that any member of the British security forces has engaged in torture, that person will be brought to trial, in the hope that he or she will be punished severely?

David Miliband: Yes, in respect of the 42 documents. The Government's commitment is to work openly with the Intelligence and Security Committee. It is an important part of our system that works well in holding to account some of the most sensitive aspects of Government.
	In the end, the decision about prosecution is obviously a matter for the Attorney-General and the Director of Public Prosecutions. I am sure that they will want to discharge their duties in accordance with the full and open law of the land.

Tony Baldry: The Foreign Secretary will know that, in 1863, President Lincoln issued an edict, which stated:
	"Military necessity does not admit of cruelty nor of torture to extort confessions."
	However, in December 2002, Donald Rumsfeld did just that by authorising interrogation techniques that clearly violated article 3 of the Geneva convention. Does the Foreign Secretary agree that nothing has so damaged the moral authority of the United States and her allies as the use of extraordinary rendition?

David Miliband: Yes. I said in a different context in the House that democratic countries are held to a higher standard than terrorist groups or others, and that those standards are in our interest. When we violate them, we seriously let ourselves down. If the hon. Gentleman is referring to Abu Ghraib and other matters, he is right to suggest that that did huge damage to not only the moral standing but the political position of decent people everywhere.

Peter Bottomley: Will the Foreign Secretary send a report of our exchanges to the United States and ask for a summary or redacted version of the documents, which would solve a particular problem? Does he regret that the Government waited till 2007 to take up the issue of British residents instead of responding to the pro bono lawyers working for the Guantanamo people, who asked them to do it rather earlier?

David Miliband: The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. Until the end of 2005—certainly throughout 2005—the Government's focus was on bringing back the nine British citizens. We wanted to work hard to take that experience into account before moving to the separate class of issue to do with the former residents. In that context, the Home Secretary and I were presented with the work that had been done when we took office at the end of June 2007. Five weeks later, we were able to apply for their release.
	I can assure the hon. Gentleman from previous experience, that our closest ally watches exchanges in the House closely.

Robert Smith: There will be some confusion in many of my constituents' minds about the role of the Foreign Secretary. On intelligence sharing and the protocols that go with it, the decision rests with the United States, but that does not prevent him from making representations on behalf of this country to the United States. Surely that is the role of Foreign Secretary—making representations on behalf of this country.

David Miliband: I can think only that the hon. Gentleman was not listening when I described—and the court described—the Government's extensive, to use the court's word, "strenuous" efforts to secure the return of the individuals from Guantanamo Bay. If that does not constitute standing up for this country's national interest, I do not know what does.

Philip Hollobone: The really special bit of our special relationship with the United States is our intelligence sharing, and the Foreign Secretary is right to defend that. However, does he understand my constituents' concerns that this man is not even a British national? He has taken legal proceedings against the British Government, who seem to be doing their level best to return him to the United Kingdom. Does the Foreign Secretary recognise my constituents' concern that the man is creating all sorts of problems for us as a country, despite our best efforts to get him back here?

David Miliband: I prefer to stick with the fact that our position—to seek the release and return of Mr. Mohamed, as a former British resident—is the right thing to do. I am sorry if the hon. Gentleman cannot support us in that, even if he recognises the overall importance of the links between the US and the UK.

Points of Order

Damian Green: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I refer to the Speaker's statement earlier today. In it, he referred to the investigations that he had made since the point of order that my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) raised about the police's desire to look through e-mails sent between us. I find it extraordinary that, in a matter that concerns e-mails, which may be private, between two Members, the House authorities did not approach me to establish facts, but approached the Metropolitan police and took only their version of events as the basis for a Speaker's statement.
	In addition, and even more seriously, the House will wish to know that Mr. Speaker has declined my request for the Standards and Privileges Committee to look at material seized from my office to decide what is privileged. Instead, the Clerks of the House—

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is an experienced Member and knows that that is not the appropriate way in which to question the Speaker's statement. Clearly, I will ensure that his remarks are brought to Mr. Speaker's attention.

Damian Green: Further to my point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is absurd that I can say things outside the House, but not inside—

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order.

Damian Green: I—

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I have already made a ruling. It is open to the hon. Gentleman to write to Mr. Speaker in addition to the action that I shall take in ensuring that his comments are drawn to the Speaker's attention.

David Davis: Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Mr. Speaker's statement was in response to my original point of order of last Monday, when I asked him to give a ruling about whether the communications of Members of Parliament other than my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green), wherever those communications reside—e-mails can reside on everybody's computer or on several computers—should come within the protocol that Mr. Speaker had published in the previous week. It laid down that such applications would require both a warrant and an application to him prior to any action. I have to say that we have not had a response to that request.

Madam Deputy Speaker: I repeat what I said earlier—the remarks will be brought to the attention of Mr. Speaker. I have nothing to add to the statement that he has already made.

Graham Stuart: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wrote to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 15 December on behalf of my constituent, Mr. Raymond Hardy, who, like 30,000 others, had deposits with Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander in the Isle of Man. I have repeatedly chased up the Treasury for an answer. Yesterday, the Treasury e-mailed me, saying:
	"We are unsure when a final reply would be sent to you, as we have several thousand outstanding cases to be signed by ministers or drafted by officials. I would like to sincerely apologise for the delay in replying, but HMT correspondence has almost trebled over the past few months, and we simply do not have enough staff to complete all cases in time."
	So, I and other Members have constituents who cannot meet their commitments because they cannot access moneys, which are supposed to be guaranteed, yet their Members of Parliament cannot get an answer from the Treasury. Please could you help in ensuring that the Treasury does something about it?

Madam Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman has made his point. He knows that it is not a point of order for the Chair, but Ministers are present on the Treasury Bench and will have heard his comments.

David Winnick: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In pursuance of previous points of order, and I do not want to get involved in the controversy about e-mails, could you, or the Speaker in due course, let us know the position on the inquiry—I hope that there will be a parliamentary inquiry—about the way in which the police came into the Palace of Westminster and took possession of the papers and equipment of the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green)? It is important to bear in mind that concern is not by any means confined to the Opposition. Many of us are very concerned, and said so on 3 December, that such entry took place without a search warrant. Leaving aside what various Select Committees are doing, it would be interesting to know whether it is possible for the House to conduct an inquiry into what occurred.

Madam Deputy Speaker: I can only add to and repeat my earlier comments. I will ensure that Mr. Speaker is aware of the matters that have been brought before me as points of order and of the feelings of hon. Members of all parties.

Dominic Grieve: Further to that point of order. Two issues are now clear. First, as Mr. Speaker said, privilege—the protection that Members of Parliament enjoy—is a matter for the House. Secondly, it is clear from the conduct of the investigation that those carrying it out for the Metropolitan police are well aware of that because they appear to have been contacting the House and its servants to ascertain what might be privileged and what might not. Given that the decision ultimately falls to the House, is not it a strange state of affairs that the House is being denied the opportunity of getting the advice that it needs to make a reasonable decision? There has been no reference to the Standards and Privileges Committee, which has been set up for that express purpose. Could you please ensure that the Speaker is aware that the way in which the matter is developing gives rise to serious concern?

Madam Deputy Speaker: I can assure the hon. and learned Gentleman—and, indeed, all right hon. and hon. Members in the Chamber this afternoon—that I will ensure that Mr. Speaker is made aware, as I have already said, of the comments and the feelings of Members across the House.

Patrick Cormack: Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Madam Deputy Speaker: I do not know that there is anything further that I can add. I have already restated, on more than one occasion, that the comments of Members will be drawn to the attention of Mr. Speaker.

Patrick Cormack: But I have a special comment.

Madam Deputy Speaker: Sir Patrick Cormack.

Patrick Cormack: Thank you. I think that we all appreciate both what you have said and the delicacy of your position, Madam Deputy Speaker. The fact that you are going to talk to Mr. Speaker is something for which we are all grateful. When you talk to him, will you ask him whether he would be kind enough to consider making a statement on Monday to clarify a number of points? One of those points is that in the debate on 8 December he proposed that a committee be established, but because the motion that was put down was very different from his original proposal, the whole issue has run into the sand. It would be helpful to the whole House if Mr. Speaker could make an up-to-date statement, referring to the points made today and saying how he sees the way forward now.

Madam Deputy Speaker: May I repeat, once again, that the comments that have been made by hon. Members in the Chamber this afternoon will be relayed to Mr. Speaker? I am sure that it will then be up to him, at the time that he feels is appropriate, to make a response to the House.

Andrew Tyrie: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am not going to refer in any way to the specific issues already raised, although I have repeatedly asked that the matter be referred to the Standards and Privileges Committee. Could you possibly have a word with Mr. Speaker and ask him to reconsider the decisions that have been taken, including those taken here, to close down opportunities for Members to make points of order in response to this specific issue?

Madam Deputy Speaker: Well, I can repeat once again—

Andrew MacKay: Gagged.

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I repeat once again that I can give an assurance to all Members in this House that the strength of feeling and the comments that have been made will be relayed to Mr. Speaker.

Sri Lanka

Topical debate

Bill Rammell: I beg to move,
	That this House has considered the matter of Sri Lanka.
	I am pleased that we are having this debate today because, to put it bluntly, the situation in Sri Lanka is nothing short of shocking. We are very concerned about the humanitarian and human rights situation there. The humanitarian situation in the north of the country particularly has seriously deteriorated since the House last debated this subject in December.
	In recent weeks, the fighting between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the Government of Sri Lanka has become increasingly bloody and the humanitarian situation has deteriorated dramatically. Fighting has continued even within the Government-declared safe zone, and on Sunday a hospital that had been declared a no-fire zone was shelled three times. Further shelling has taken place this week. The United Nations reports that at least 50 civilians have died at the hospital and that many more have been wounded, including women and children. There are more civilian casualties every day.
	Those attacks are serious violations of international humanitarian law. Any attempts, including by representatives of the Sri Lankan Government, to defend the shelling of the hospital are frankly unacceptable. We expect and urge the Government of Sri Lanka to investigate any allegations of abuses by their forces. We would support a full investigation into the shelling of the hospital and into other civilian deaths. The primary burden for investigation rests on the authority against whose forces allegations of war crimes are made, and we expect such investigations to be undertaken.

Keith Vaz: May I thank the Minister for that statement, which is a strong condemnation of the actions of the Sri Lankan Government? On Saturday, 100,000 British Tamils marched through the streets of London peacefully, to draw attention to the plight of the Tamil community. Have the strong words that the Minister has issued in the House today been transmitted to the President of Sri Lanka?

Bill Rammell: We have repeatedly communicated our concerns to the Sri Lankan Government and we will continue to do so. I am conscious of the number of Members who wish to speak in this debate. I will therefore try to make some progress, to get the Government's position on the record, and then allow other Members to come in, if time allows.
	The statement made by the Sri Lankan Government on Tuesday—that civilians should move out of the conflict area because they could no longer guarantee their safety—was extraordinarily worrying. The Sri Lankan Government have a duty to protect all their citizens and should do everything in their power to ensure their safety. Accurate figures of casualties are difficult to come by, but we estimate that there are around 250,000 internally displaced persons caught up in the conflict area. The United Nations has been unable to send a major humanitarian convoy into the conflict zone to assist civilians since 16 January, although some supplies were sent on 29 January. These are major matters of concern.
	Our overwhelming priority is to press for a humanitarian ceasefire. Both sides have to respect international humanitarian law and take steps to protect civilians from the profound threats that they face, as well as allow humanitarian agencies the access that they need to bring those desperate people the help that they need. Over the past few weeks, we have increased our efforts to urge the Government of Sri Lanka to take action to alleviate the suffering of civilians.
	We have also been acutely aware of the concern felt by members of the Tamil communities about the suffering of Tamils in Sri Lanka. The Foreign Secretary and my noble Friend Lord Malloch-Brown last week met more than 100 representatives of the Tamil communities in the UK to listen to their concerns, reassure them that we take them very seriously and explain the efforts that the Government are making to help bring about an end to the conflict.
	My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister wrote to President Rajapakse in mid-January expressing our fundamental concern. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary telephoned the President last week and urged him to declare a humanitarian ceasefire. My right hon. Friend has since repeated his calls for a humanitarian ceasefire and has publicly called on both sides to allow the wounded to receive medical treatment, to allow civilians to leave the conflict areas and to allow access for humanitarian agencies.
	The Foreign Secretary also discussed the matter with US Secretary of State Clinton on Tuesday. They jointly called for a no-fire period to allow civilians to leave the conflict area and to allow humanitarian agencies access. There is no doubt that there is also concern in the United Nations about the safety and well-being of civilians caught up in the conflict, as the Secretary-General made clear in his statements of 26 and 30 January. We fully support the Secretary-General's sentiments and endorse his call for both sides to the conflict to abide by those important humanitarian obligations.

Jeremy Corbyn: I endorse what the Minister has said and welcome the strength of his call for a ceasefire. That said, if the Government of Sri Lanka are simply not prepared to listen to the international community's calls for a ceasefire, is it not time for some degree of sanctions, such as suspension from the Commonwealth or the suspension of military or trade agreements, to show that the rest of the world means business in trying to bring about peace in Sri Lanka?

Bill Rammell: My hon. Friend will know that the European Union's generalised system of preferences plus is already under investigation. I do not rule anything out. The situation is extraordinarily worrying. At the moment, we are focused with all our international partners on ensuring that both sides meet their obligations and that we get an end to that horrendous conflict, which is blighting the lives of so many people.
	On 29 January, President Rajapakse offered safe passage to civilians, but the LTTE failed to respond positively and hostilities did not cease even temporarily. The LTTE continues to refuse to allow civilians to leave the conflict areas. Worse still, it is deliberately using them as a human shield. There are credible reports that the LTTE fires artillery on Sri Lankan Government troops from locations next to civilian centres, including from next to the hospital in the no-fire zone where civilians were killed on Sunday.
	We call on the Government of Sri Lanka to repeat their offer of safe passage. We are working with others in the international community, particularly the United States and other members of the co-chairs group—Japan, the EU and Norway—to increase the pressure on the LTTE to respond positively. The call for a temporary no-fire period by the Foreign Secretary and Hillary Clinton this week should be acted upon immediately. The co-chairs have also called on both sides to allow a period for humanitarian aid to be delivered and have called on the LTTE to discuss ways of ending the current hostilities and to participate in a process to achieve a just and lasting political solution. Too many lives have already been lost in this terrible conflict. We do not want to see the situation deteriorate further.

Simon Hughes: The Minister's strong comments will be widely welcomed. So far, independent agencies have not been able to gain access to the north of Sri Lanka. Will he undertake to ensure that such access is given priority, through action by either the United Nations or the Commonwealth, or both? If necessary, will the Prime Minister—who has been very helpful—make a further telephone call to the President of Sri Lanka, so that independent humanitarian and political agencies can gain access to the north, so that everyone knows exactly what is going on and can act accordingly?

Bill Rammell: I agree that humanitarian access is crucial. The Sri Lankan Government can be in no doubt about our views on that subject, but we will continue to put them forward forcefully at all levels.
	Given the urgency of the situation, we are also taking immediate practical steps to alleviate the suffering of civilians. We have allocated a further £2.5 million, on top of the £2.5 million that we committed in October last year, to support the efforts of humanitarian agencies in Sri Lanka.
	When the House last debated Sri Lanka, I explained that an objective assessment of the conflict was impossible because independent media and non-governmental organisations had limited access to the conflict zones. Attributing responsibility for individual attacks to one side or the other remains difficult. It is clear, however, that both sides have to take immediate steps to protect civilian lives.
	The conflict between the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE has now been going on for more than 25 years. It has claimed the lives of at least 70,000 people in Sri Lanka and is daily claiming more. We recognise the Government of Sri Lanka's right to root out terrorism, but we are seriously concerned about the impact that the current military approach is having on civilians in the north. It remains our position that a political solution that addresses the legitimate concerns of all communities is the only way to bring a sustainable end to the conflict. We are continuing to call for a full debate, free from intimidation, among all communities—Tamil, Muslim and Sinhalese—on what an acceptable political settlement to the conflict might look like.
	The Government of Sri Lanka must do more. They need to reach out to the different communities, build their confidence and demonstrate real commitment to reaching an inclusive political end to the conflict. Reaching a political solution now is in the Sri Lankan Government's interests. We also urge the LTTE to renounce terrorist methods and to demonstrate a genuine commitment to participate in a democratic political process to resolve the conflict. The LTTE should be doing all that it can to protect civilians at a time when Sri Lankan Tamils are suffering the worst effects of the conflict. We call on those who have influence with the LTTE also to encourage it to enter the democratic mainstream.
	An important part of any political solution will be the establishment of effective systems and structures to protect the rights of all Sri Lankans. We continue to be concerned about the use of child soldiers by paramilitary groups, the culture of ethnic discrimination and the reports of abductions, disappearances and extra-judicial killings of civilians. The fact that prosecutions for such abuses are rare is feeding a dangerous culture of impunity. The Government of Sri Lanka clearly have a direct responsibility to tackle all human rights violations. Only by ensuring that full and thorough investigations into such violations are followed by successful prosecutions of those responsible will the Government strengthen the rule of law and tackle this corrosive culture of impunity.
	Overall, the past month has demonstrated how serious the human rights situation remains. Media freedom has been under particular threat throughout January. A senior editor was murdered in Colombo in broad daylight, another was assaulted and the broadcasting centre of an independent TV station was destroyed by a well-armed gang. No one has yet been charged with any of these terrible crimes.

Philip Hollobone: Is it not important for the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit Sri Lanka as soon as possible so that they can see at first hand what is going on and have face-to-face meetings with the President of Sri Lanka?

Bill Rammell: The immediate priority is to allow the humanitarian agencies unfettered access, in order to bring relief to the people. A range of direct channels of communication to the Sri Lankan Government and the LTTE are being pursued to try to get the message across about the urgency of the situation.

Phyllis Starkey: My hon. Friend has described the climate of fear that exists throughout Sri Lanka. Has he impressed on the Sri Lankan Government the fact that they should not simply label every Tamil voice a white tiger and refuse to have a dialogue with them? The Government must engage with the more moderate parts of the Tamil community, in Sri Lanka and internationally.

Bill Rammell: There is a great deal of force in what my hon. Friend says. I referred earlier to the need for a political solution and a political dialogue with representatives of all the communities, and that has to be a key part of the way forward.

Andrew Love: I thank my hon. Friend for being so helpful to hon. Members who are concerned about the situation in Sri Lanka. Since 2006, 14 media workers have been unlawfully killed and, in the past two years, more than 20 journalists have left the country under threat. A climate of impunity has developed. The Sri Lankan Defence Minister has even accused the BBC and other international organisations of having a bias against the Government. Surely something must be done about this. Will my hon. Friend take the matter up with the Sri Lankan Government at the highest level?

Bill Rammell: I agree that the culture of impunity is wrong. It is extraordinarily corrosive, and it is undermining confidence. That is the message that my noble Friend Lord Malloch-Brown, the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister have communicated.

Andrew George: rose—

Bill Rammell: I will give way, but this must be the very last time, as I am conscious of the number of Members who wish to speak.

Andrew George: I am grateful. I do not think all of us will have the opportunity to speak, so an intervention is possibly the best way to make my point. I support the Minister's statement, but will he acknowledge that there is no such thing as a military solution in Sri Lanka? That is something that the Government there appear not to understand. Given the influence that the British Government have, will he please impress on the Sri Lankan Government the importance not only of humanitarian aid but of having independent human rights observation and independent arbitration of the many issues that will have to be resolved in the months and years ahead?

Bill Rammell: I agree emphatically that there cannot be a military solution, and that there needs to be a political one.
	Recent attacks on the media are likely to have been carried out by extreme nationalist elements who have been encouraged by recent military progress in the north to take action against those perceived as traitors. We are urging the Sri Lankan Government to take firmer action to discourage the dangerous mood of ethnic nationalism, and to take clear-cut and rigorous action to bring the perpetrators of the attacks to justice. It is unacceptable for the Government of Sri Lanka not to do this.
	While discussing human rights, it is appropriate to mention here the concerns that some hon. Members have expressed to me about the tone and substance of their contacts with representatives of the Sri Lankan Government. For the record, let me say unequivocally that every Member of this House has the absolute right to speak out in the interests of their constituents.
	In conclusion, we want to see an end to this terrible conflict that has already claimed too many lives and gone on for far too long. The situation is unacceptable. We will do everything in our power to prevent more deaths, but ultimately it is for the Government and people of Sri Lanka to bring this about.

Keith Simpson: I concur with nearly everything the Minister said. One of the most depressing aspects of this debate is that the war—and it is a war—has been going on since 1983. I suspect that the Sri Lankan Government are probably their own worst enemy, as was suggested earlier. They might believe that this final military campaign will end the war and they will achieve total victory, but our own history is littered with far too many examples to show that, although there will be a military victory and they will occupy the last areas held by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, we will then see a new form of war that will probably be conducted in a much more ferocious and violent way. It is up to us, who regard ourselves as friends of the Sri Lankan Government, to persuade them of the undoubted errors of their ways.

Keith Vaz: I welcome the bipartisan approach that is being taken here today. That is different from the debates that we have had in the past. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that this is a matter not only of achieving a ceasefire, but of commencing a peace process immediately afterwards? Does he also agree that Britain has an important role to play, as we have in the past, in ensuring that the peace talks get going as quickly as possible?

Keith Simpson: I agree absolutely with the right hon. Gentleman. Indeed, the history of the conflict is one of stop-start peace negotiations, during which it is possible to allocate blame at different times to both sides. The House will know that my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox), when he was a Foreign Office Minister in 1997, actually brokered a ceasefire and an agreement, which held for a considerable period. There are examples from both sides of the House of attempts to get the ceasefire moving.
	My assessment is that, at the moment, it is not in the narrow military interests of Sri Lanka's Government to allow what everybody has been asking for. They genuinely believe that the war will be finished within the next two or three weeks, so they are going to endure the pressures, the criticisms and the pleas from the international community, and particularly the British Government, to accede to the suggestions that have been made, whether it be to let in the international media, to allow humanitarian aid, or whatever. It is in the Government's interests not to do that, whereas it is obviously in the LTTE's interests desperately to hope for a ceasefire to prevent, as it were, the final endgame.

Andrew Love: Is not the fallacy in the Sri Lankan Government's position the fact that the legacy of enmity and bitterness created in the north of the island and the polarisation of opinion will militate against the conditions in which a peaceful settlement can actually be agreed?

Keith Simpson: I fear that the hon. Gentleman may well be right, but I also want to put on record, as I suspect did the Minister, the view that dreadful wrongs have been done on both sides. In trying to take a view on who is right and wrong, we should remember that at different times, both the LTTE and the Sri Lankan Government have decided to end a ceasefire. However noble the cause that the LTTE sees itself as defending, it needs to be recognised that it has indulged in some appalling terrorist atrocities: it is an incredibly effective terrorist organisation, which has provided an example of terrorist methods for many other such organisations. However much it believes in its cause, we must remember that the LTTE assassinated a Sri Lankan president and was involved in the assassination of the Prime Minister of India, so the fear and loathing felt by the majority population is understandable. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right.
	My only hope lies in the possibility that if, at the end of two or three weeks, the Sri Lankan Government see that they have won a victory, there will be some voices within that Government calling to open up new negotiations. However, I could well understand it if the LTTE, having suffered such a humiliating defeat, decided not to engage in them and ratcheted up the terrorism.
	The objective of all of us and of the British Government is, as the Minister said, to put as much pressure as possible over the next two or three weeks on the Sri Lankan Government to carry out the humanitarian action that is required. Indeed, it is in that Government's best interests to do so, as they will eventually have to come to terms with international opinion. Secondly, we should protest as much as we can when the media are attacked or intimidated by either side; we must make certain that we have an absolutely fair balance. Finally, we should spell out to the Sri Lankan Government the types of ultimate sanction that the international community could impose. A number of organisations could do that.
	I shall not speak further, as I know that many hon. Members have constituency interests to raise. The situation is appalling. I fear that the Sri Lankan Government, for military reasons, will not give way on the issues we have raised. Nevertheless, it is crucial that we continue to press them.

Stephen Hammond: I know that my hon. Friend is a military historian. It is important to be clear that, however the Sri Lankan Government see the position militarily, there can be no international credibility in a purely military victory—indeed, that will not be a victory. Anything that happens militarily must be accompanied by solutions that involve suffrage for the Tamil community. Should we not say to the Sri Lankan Government that the model established for the eastern provincial council elections, whatever its imperfections, provides a way forward, in that it involves the Tamil community in the suffrage process?

Keith Simpson: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Our history and the history of the world are littered with instances where majorities have tried to impose an undemocratic system on a minority. There is ultimately a solution, as history shows: it involves driving the minority out completely. That, I suspect, will prove impossible in Sri Lanka, and I think that some elements within the Sri Lankan Government and within the majority recognise that. Although the situation is dark and one has great reason to be pessimistic, we should nevertheless continue our best efforts to reach a solution that successive British Governments have worked so hard to achieve.

Several hon. Members: rose —

Madam Deputy Speaker: I remind hon. Members that Mr. Speaker has imposed a six-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches.

Joan Ryan: I start by welcoming the Minister's statement, which clearly indicated the Government's view and, I hope, the pressure that they and all our partners will bring to bear on the Government of Sri Lanka. I also welcome the cross-party approach expressed by the hon. Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson). The main political parties and others have pursued a cross-party approach for some time in the all-party Tamils group.
	It is worth recalling that the people who are really suffering are the Tamil community both in Sri Lanka and here in the diaspora. Tamil constituents come to see me, absolutely frantic that they cannot make any contact with their friends and family. They do not know what has happened to their loved ones, or even whether they are alive, injured or, worse still, dead. We have a real responsibility because of our history with Sri Lanka, because we speak for our own constituents and a huge Tamil community of British citizens, and because of our deep concern about the current situation.
	A recent report by the Genocide Prevention Project highlighted Sri Lanka as one of eight red alert countries where genocide or mass atrocities are under way or at risk of breaking out. I do not think that any of us can afford to ignore such an alert. We have said many times in the aftermath of genocide that we could have seen it coming and that we could and should have done more to prevent it. We must say and do more to prevent it from happening in Sri Lanka.

Keith Vaz: I thank my right hon. Friend for organising a meeting last week with the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, in which these matters were raised. Does she agree that now is the time for the Government to appoint an envoy to succeed the current Secretary of State for Wales, who did the job extremely well? It is important that we send out a signal, and the appointment of an envoy is one way of doing so.

Joan Ryan: I very much agree. We had two very useful meetings with the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary and we are certain of their commitment to do more. I agree with the idea of appointing a special envoy, as envoys provide an important link and are able to form close relationships, to follow the situation and to report back directly to the Prime Minister. Such a role is important, so I hope that an appointment will be announced very soon.
	We have heard the figures and know that 250,000 people are trapped. The most worrying aspect is that the Government of Sri Lanka have denied any responsibility for the safety and well-being of civilians who are still in the war zone. Lakshman Hulugalle, director of the Government media centre in Sri Lanka, has said that
	"the Government cannot be responsible for the safety and security of civilians still living among the LTTE".
	Yes, they can. I repeat: yes, they can. That is an outrageous statement, which demonstrates that the Sri Lankan Government are abandoning their responsibilities.
	There has been a huge number of civilian injuries and deaths. I believe that the estimate of at least 70,000 deaths has been updated to at least 75,000 and is increasing. We know that more than 10,000 people have been injured and that there are 220,000 displaced people. We know that more than 10,000 people have been injured, and that there are 220,000 displaced people. This is no longer a crisis; it is by any measure a catastrophe.
	Human Rights Watch has said:
	"Intense fighting between the Sri Lankan army and the separatist LTTE has caught an estimated 250,000 civilians in deadly crossfire, and in the past week civilian casualties have risen dramatically."
	Brad Adams, the Asia director of Human Rights Watch, has said:
	"Civilians are scrambling for shelter in an area that is under heavy artillery fire, including many children, wounded, and elderly who need urgent assistance."
	He added:
	"The UN and concerned governments should press Sri Lanka to take all necessary steps to spare civilians from harm."
	In contrast, military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara told the media
	"There were no civilians killed",
	and added:
	"We are targeting the LTTE. We are not targeting any civilians, so there can't be any civilians killed."
	I think that that signifies a complete abrogation of a national Government's responsibilities.
	Only yesterday, United Nations sources indicated that many reports were coming in of the use of cluster bombs in the safety zone. With my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh), I raised that very matter with the Sri Lankan high commission, but the high commission, and all Government sources in Sri Lanka, regard any sort of question as an attack. Their attitude is "If you are not with us, you are agin us." There is no room for anyone even to question what is happening in Sri Lanka. The high commissioner—showing what I am afraid I would call almost a lack of respect—rubbished our suggestion, implying that we were simply foolish victims of propaganda and unable to make our own judgments on these matters. Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch has said that it is
	"unaware of any serious action by the government".

Lee Scott: Does the right hon. Lady share my concern about the fact that whenever any Member on either side of the House speaks up for the Tamil people and refers to their plight, the automatic, default reaction of the Sri Lankan Government is to accuse us all of being terrorists for doing so?

Joan Ryan: I entirely share that concern. I have been subjected to exactly that approach myself, as has my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden, ever since we first opened our mouths on this issue.
	The tragedy is that this was so preventable. It has been coming for such a long time that we could see it happening. Now is the time to be brave: we must not lack courage now. This may be the very last opportunity for us to insist on a ceasefire before we see many, many more thousands of people killed or injured.
	I am very concerned by the response of the Sri Lankan Government in denying responsibility for their own civilians. It flies in the face of earlier guarantees and clearly contravenes international law. The Sri Lankan Government have made it clear that civilians should move to the safe zone, but, as we have heard, civilians are not safe in the safe zone and we know that they are not being enabled to move to the safe zone. We have also heard reports of attacks on both civilians and international aid workers in the safe zone.
	The situation is very difficult for all aid agencies and international NGOs, which have been forced out of the Vanni region along with journalists. There are now no "eyes of the world" to observe what is happening, and we fear that huge abuses are being perpetrated. We know that when international statespeople have tried to become involved—many eminent international figures have commented on the deteriorating human rights situation—they have been sharply criticised by senior Government officials. Some—

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I am afraid that the right hon. Lady's time is up.

Edward Davey: I am delighted that we are speaking as one in the House today. The message to the Sri Lankan Government must be loud and clear: British parties of all colours demand a ceasefire, demand justice for the Tamil people, and demand that humanitarian assistance be allowed through. A very welcome voice is being heard from the House today.
	Let me first praise the right hon. Member for Enfield, North (Joan Ryan) and the all-party delegation to the Prime Minister—of which I was a member—that she led last week. I also praise the Minister for the strong words that he used, and, indeed, praise the words of the hon. Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson). I disagreed with the hon. Gentleman on only one small issue: I still think that we need to argue for the ceasefire. He may be right in saying that the Sri Lankan Government will not heed our calls, but I nevertheless believe that we should make them loud and clear. Unless we do so, there is a danger not just that more civilians and soldiers will be killed, but that there will be massacres in the Vanni region, where there are hundreds of thousands of civilians and troops.
	We really need that ceasefire, and I am delighted that the Government—in the form of the Prime Minister as well as the Foreign Secretary—have called for it. I am also delighted that the Foreign Secretary achieved, through his discussion with Secretary Clinton in the United States, a joint US-UK call for a ceasefire. However, I urge the Government to go further. As I said in a letter to the Prime Minister recently, they should go to the United Nations Security Council. We need the whole international community to speak as one. We need to work for that, because the Sri Lankan Government should be in no doubt about how the international community feels. I am aware of the dangers involved, because it is always difficult to get a resolution through the United Nations Security Council. That is why I think we should call on some of our international colleagues to recognise the significance of the situation.

Keith Vaz: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, but it is also true that we are one of the big players in the United Nations. Even if we do not get a resolution through, it is important that one should be raised at the Security Council.

Edward Davey: I agree, but let me identify some of the challenges that the Government face in trying to secure that resolution. The first comes from China. Britain and others have rightly reduced aid to Sri Lanka because of our opposition to some of its Government's measures, not just recently but over a number of years, and the Chinese have filled the vacuum. They are now sending £500 million of aid to Sri Lanka. We must tell them that it is not acceptable to give that amount of aid to a Government who are breaking international law. We must tell them—presumably quietly—that what they need to do in order to make amends is vote for a Security Council resolution. I believe that, with the Chinese and the Americans, we will bring the French and the Russians along as well.
	Other developments show how strong we need to be with the Government of Sri Lanka. The fact that the Iranians are sending £900 million of aid in soft loans, grants and cheap oil should tell us everything that we need to know about the current Sri Lankan regime: its biggest friends are in Tehran. Does Sri Lanka really want to put itself in that position? Does it want to isolate itself along with Iran? It used to be a fantastic country. It used to be more democratic. It used to uphold the rights of individuals and minorities. Now, through the way in which it is behaving both to its own people and internationally, it is putting itself in serious jeopardy.
	Last March, the State Department of the United States issued a report accusing the Sri Lankan Government of attacking civilians and practising torture, kidnapping, hostage-taking and extortion with impunity. That is the nature of the regime, and our calls today should be loud and unequivocal.

Andrew George: One of the biggest obstacles, in my view, is Sri Lanka itself. On the last occasion when President Rajapaksa came to the United Kingdom, I was privileged to have an opportunity to ask him about the human rights situation there. He told me that national human rights organisations were simply a front for the Tamil Tigers, and that international human rights organisations were simply gun-running for the Tamil Tigers. With that psychology, he must realise that we have a major impediment to overcome.

Edward Davey: My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and sometimes one feels powerless when such injustices are taking place, but it is our job in this House to make the case nevertheless.
	Colleagues have talked about how the press have been restricted. Not only have they been prevented from reporting the fighting, but journalists have been killed—the editor of  The Sunday Leader was murdered—and there have been attacks on CNN and the BBC, accusing them of partisan behaviour. That shows how low the Sri Lankan Government are stooping. Also, only recently they expelled non-governmental organisations providing humanitarian assistance in the north-east of the island from that area, which was despicable. The Sri Lankan Government are breaking international law in many ways, so the Minister was right to use such strong language. I simply urge him to do that more, and to go to the UN.
	I am conscious that other Members wish to speak, but I want to make one final, and very serious, point. In international discussions, too many countries hide behind the idea that they are democracies; they think that as they have elections and voting, they are somehow beyond the law, but they are not. Democracies are not beyond the law, particularly when they abuse the rule of law, allow minorities to be attacked and attack civil liberties and human rights. In my view, that makes them non-democracies. Sri Lanka has a proud history as a fantastic democracy and country. In the early '70s, it was not just a beautiful island—many parts still are beautiful—but it reduced infant mortality and increased adult literacy to levels not seen even in our country. In the past, democracy in Sri Lanka produced fantastic achievements. That is why what is happening now is so tragic. It is betraying its own history, as well as its own people.
	Today, this House should be absolutely strong—I am looking forward to hearing Members' contributions—and the Government should have our full support as long as they take this argument to the Sri Lankan Government and take the message to the international community.

Andrew Dismore: Since the end of last year, the eyes of the world have been on Gaza and southern Israel. There have been humanitarian aid appeals, debates in the House and statements from Ministers. However, while everyone focused on that area, a nasty, vicious, unremitting offensive was launched in north-east Sri Lanka at the end of last year, and I, like other Members who represent Tamil communities, have been inundated with letters and e-mails demanding that our Government take action. An appalling humanitarian catastrophe has unfolded almost unseen because the Sri Lankan Government have forbidden journalists to go there to report it. There has been a full-scale war with little or no respect for the human rights of the civilians, all of them Tamil, who are trapped in the battle—a battle for survival for the LTTE, and a battle for conquest for the Sri Lankan Government.
	Three-hundred thousand civilians are trapped, and hundreds have been killed and injured in Vanni. There has been aerial and artillery bombardment, and there are allegations that cluster bombs have been used. There have been human rights violations by both sides—I spoke about them in the House during the debate on human rights and the Foreign Affairs Committee report on 18 December. The International Committee of the Red Cross reported on 28 January:
	"Hundreds of people had been killed...scores of wounded were overwhelming understaffed and ill-equipped medical facilities...People are being caught in the crossfire, hospitals and ambulances have been hit by shelling and...aid workers...injured while evacuating the wounded."
	The Sri Lankan Government claim that they have established safe zones, but civilians have been killed in them by their artillery. A hospital doctor reported that 1,000 shells fell around his hospital. Internally displaced people from Vanni are kept in compulsory camps in Jaffna. People have repeatedly been displaced with inadequate food, shelter or medicine. Civilians face extreme risks in the safe zones from indiscriminate fire. On 28 January, the American Ceylon mission at Suthanthirapuram was bombed; 17 people were killed and 39 injured, including three orphans. At the time the Government of Sri Lanka had declared the area a neutral zone. On 30 January, the UN Secretary-General called on the Sri Lankan Government to ensure that civilians fleeing from Vanni were treated in accordance with international standards. Clearly, that has not been the case.
	Journalists have been excluded, there have been increasing attacks on the media, and Lasantha Wickramatunge, editor of  The Sunday Leader, was recently assassinated. Fourteen media people have been killed in the past three years, and others have been detained or tortured or have disappeared. Yet these crimes are not being investigated.
	We should not absolve the LTTE, as it has been guilty of human rights abuses. A 24-vehicle convoy arranged by the Red Cross and the UN to transport 300 wounded and 50 children was stopped from leaving. The LTTE has been guilty of forced labour and forced recruitment, including of child soldiers. It has prevented civilians from leaving, forcing them into Mullaitivu, the LTTE controlled area, effectively as human shields, in violation of the laws of war. The Bishop of Jaffna, Dr. Nayagam, said on 25 January:
	"We are urgently requesting Tamil Tigers not to station themselves among the people in the safety zone and fire their artillery shells and rockets at the Army."
	A ceasefire is desperately needed. The real responsibility for what is going on lies with the Government of Sri Lanka. There is no doubt about that; they launched this cruel offensive. We must use all the levers available to us to demand a ceasefire from the Sri Lankan Government. In the interim, there must be more safe zones and humanitarian corridors. The ICRC and the UNHCR must have full access, as must journalists. We must demand respect for the Geneva convention by both sides, particularly in relation to captured prisoners of war and civilians.
	We need to look at our humanitarian aid effort. We have given £2.5 million, on top of the £2.5 million given last year. That is less than one tenth of the amount that we have committed to Gaza, and the situation in Sri Lanka is as bad, if not worse.
	We must take action to put pressure on the Sri Lankan Government. Sri Lanka should be suspended from the Commonwealth for its repeated breaches of human rights week after week, month after month, and year after year. We should end the EU generalised system of preferences-plus scheme, which gives beneficial trade arrangements to Sri Lanka. The preferences are dependent on Sri Lanka's compliance with human rights, but Sri Lanka has broken every rule in the book.

Stephen Hammond: Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that we need to be very careful that any sanctions imposed do not hurt more the communities that we are seeking to help? There is evidence that taking action in respect of GSP-plus will potentially harm the Tamil community as much as anyone else. That would be unfortunate.

Andrew Dismore: I find it very hard to see how the Tamil community could be hurt any more than by having 300,000 people trapped in a declining pocket, exposed to artillery fire, indiscriminate bombing and attacks from the Sri Lankan Government.
	The Sri Lankan Government say that they will get a military victory over the LTTE, but the Tamil issue will not be resolved by bombs, shells, grenades and bullets. The underlying grievances of the Tamil people will remain. We have to foster a political solution through reconciliation. That will be difficult, given the hatred that has been engendered by this vicious assault and by a war that has gone on for 25 years. There must be recognition of the Tamil's demand for the right of self-determination. If the LTTE is defeated in this military offensive, it will not go away; the fighting will continue in a different form, as we have seen so many times around the world. That fighting will continue until the Tamils are properly and effectively politically empowered, and have a voice in their own country, and are able to run and have a say in their own affairs.
	We must bring about a proper arrangement to achieve a political solution to a war that has gone on for far too long, claimed far too many lives, and destroyed far too many homes. I hope that the Minister will do all he can to bring about what all Members on both sides of the House want, by putting pressure on the Sri Lankan Government to stop this offensive, to stop killing people and to start talking.

Lee Scott: I join the thanks to the right hon. Member for Enfield, North (Joan Ryan) and other members of the all-party group who facilitated the meetings with both the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister last week. I believe that the meetings have produced dividends and that things are pointing in the right direction, so it is to be hoped that we can bring about what everyone in this House has called for with a united voice.
	I fear that the Sri Lankan Government used events elsewhere in the world to camouflage their own attack. They knew that the eyes of the world—including of the media—would not be on Sri Lanka, and they took that as an opportunity to conduct this offensive. My constituents, like those of other Members, are frightened to the core about what is happening to their relatives. They do not know whether they are dead or alive or injured; they cannot get any contact, and that is of great concern to them. It is therefore vital that all of us are their voices today; we must say to the Sri Lankan Government that this is not acceptable.
	There must be a ceasefire now. It must be immediate because if it is not, how many more thousands of innocent women, children and men will be killed every day in the coming weeks until the Sri Lankan Government, who wrongly think that a military option is the way forward, stop what they are doing? There must be a ceasefire and it is vital that it happens now. Whatever the means that need to be brought to bear, be it the United Nations, the Commonwealth or the meetings that the Foreign Secretary had with Secretary Clinton earlier this week, they must start to bear dividends, because if they do not, lives will continue to be lost in the Tamil community in Sri Lanka on a daily basis. If that happens, all of us in the western world should hang our heads in shame.
	We face a number of different problems. We have heard about the 75,000 people who have been killed—the figure I had was 70,000, so I am distressed to hear of the reassessment to 75,000—and the 250,000 people who have been displaced. Non-governmental organisations must be allowed into Sri Lanka now. I welcome the suggestion made by Labour Members that a new special envoy should be appointed to replace the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Mr. Murphy), because that is vital and I hope that that comes to fruition quickly.
	We have a duty to prevent the loss of any innocent life. As I have said in debates on other issues and other conflicts around the world, any loss of innocent life, on any side, is a tragedy. We are duty-bound to do something about this. What really holds fear for me is the fact that hospitals are being bombed and innocent people are being caught in the middle of a conflict. They want to live their lives in peace and harmony, as the rest of us do elsewhere in the world.
	The only solution to this situation is a political one that gives the Tamil community the right to have a say in and govern their own lives, and to live in freedom. If that does not happen, I fear that other Members of Parliament in decades to come will be in this Chamber having exactly the same debate as we are having—we must do everything we can to prevent that from occurring. It is vital that this debate of such importance has taken place; I, too, feel that the Leader of the House should be complimented on providing time for it. It is vital that when we go away from here, we leave more than just our words.
	I am aware that other hon. Members wish to speak, so I conclude by saying, as I said in an intervention, that the Sri Lankan Government should be ashamed of themselves for seeing everyone in this Chamber today as a terrorist because of our wish to stand up for people's rights. What we are not is what they accuse us of being. We wish to see human life being saved and people living in safe harmony and in a democracy.

Virendra Sharma: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak in this much-needed debate. It gives me the opportunity to tell the House of the terrible circumstances in which the Tamil people of Sri Lanka are living. The story of those sad and terrible circumstances is one that I have been hearing for years from hundreds of my Tamil constituents who have family members under military bombardment from the Sri Lankan Government even as we speak.
	As chair of the all-party group on Tamils, I have had the opportunity to meet many Tamil MPs and leaders to hear about the tragedy of the Tamil people's plight, and to discuss the ongoing crisis in Sri Lanka with Members from all sides of this House. It has been difficult to get the message to a wider audience, but through this debate, the continued demonstrations and campaigning by UK Tamils and the increased awareness of the world's media, the appalling situation that innocent Tamil civilians find themselves in is becoming clear and the pressure for an immediate ceasefire and a long- term, just and peaceful settlement of this conflict is growing.

Keith Vaz: Is it not important that we should also examine the laws governing proscription, because some campaigning organisations that wish to campaign on behalf of those who are suffering in Sri Lanka are prevented from doing so because of proscription?

Virendra Sharma: I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention and I agree with him.
	The Sri Lankan Government are seriously mistaken if they think they can resolve this problem through military means. After 25 years of conflict, it is clear that there is no military solution. A peaceful negotiated long-term settlement that enshrines the rights of the Tamil people in a federal constitution that devolves real power to the Tamils is desperately needed. All parties need to agree to an immediate ceasefire and get back to the negotiating table. Norway, the broker of the 2002 to 2005 ceasefire, and India, Sri Lanka's neighbour, need to be brought back into the picture to help bring about a lasting peace. I have used my own contacts with the Indian Government and Parliament to help in this regard and will continue to do so. It is in the interests of India and all the other neighbouring countries for there to be a resolution of this long-running conflict and for there to be regional stability.
	I pay tribute to the efforts made by the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the Secretary of State for International Development to get an immediate ceasefire and to help tackle the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the conflict zone in the north-east of the island. I welcome yesterday's joint statement issued following the meeting between the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton and the Foreign Secretary, which emphasised that
	"both sides need to allow civilians and wounded to leave the conflict area and to grant access for humanitarian agencies".
	I also welcome the pledge of an extra £2.5 million from the UK Government to help with the humanitarian crisis, but I urge them to do all they can to ensure that the aid actually gets to the people. Reports from my constituents' families in Sri Lanka suggest that this humanitarian aid is not getting through to the people. It has been of great concern to me that the Sri Lankan Government have not allowed international aid agencies, apart from the Red Cross, into the conflict zone since late summer last year.
	More than 250,000 Tamil civilians are trapped in the war zone having fled their homes after shelling, and today we hear further reports that the one hospital in the war zone is being subject to sustained shelling and the dropping of cluster bombs on it. The UN, overnight, reported that 52 civilians had been killed and 80 wounded, some inside a "safe zone". A UN spokesperson said that the Puthukkudiyiruppu—PTK—hospital in the war zone was evacuated after 16 hours of shelling. A dozen patients were killed in the shelling. Both sides deny that they are responsible, but reports suggest that air strikes were used and only the Sri Lankan army has such a capability. The attacking of hospitals and the killing of patients with cluster bombs is an obscene outrage, and those responsible need to be brought to account and punished.
	The international community and the whole world need to put pressure on the Sri Lankan Government to end these attacks on civilians and to enter into a new dialogue, so that a new round of peace talks can begin and a just settlement can be reached that recognises the legitimate rights of the oppressed Tamil people of Sri Lanka.

Andrew Pelling: What I recognise in this debate compared with the Adjournment debate that took place at the end of the Session before Christmas is a very changed atmosphere; unfortunately, our tolerance towards what has being going on with the Sri Lankan Government has come to an end.
	Many hon. Members representing London constituencies —south London constituencies in particular—attended two separate meetings, one with the Foreign Secretary and the other with the Prime Minister. I was genuinely impressed by the Government's very real concern to secure, by any appropriate means, a ceasefire in Sri Lanka; there was realism as to the leverage that the Government have and the need to work, and importance of working, with European partners and other powers around the world. It was prescient of the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary to have those meetings with us before the large crowd of 100,000 British people marched past this place last Saturday. It is no wonder that there should have been such a strong showing of concern. The attendance was much greater than the Metropolitan police had anticipated, but 100,000 is their estimate of the number who attended.
	No wonder so many turned up when we hear stories of the Government of Sri Lanka suggesting that civilians move to so-called safe zones where they are then killed by actions by the Sri Lankan army. No wonder people are concerned when hospital compounds that include paediatric wards and intensive care units are shelled. In those circumstances, it is no wonder that so many Members of Parliament are in their places today and are keen for the appropriate leverage to be applied. Appropriate work has been done with our European partners on suspending European Union grants, but other sanctions may be required to ensure that further action is taken.
	The Sri Lankan Government still appear to be of the view that they can secure an unconditional surrender. The use of that term makes me very concerned about what the next steps will be in the treatment of the Tamil population in Sri Lanka. There is a real danger that some dreadful retribution will be meted out by the Government on the Tamil people—Tamils who are not terrorists, but simply the fellow countrymen of the Sri Lankan Government, who have pursued the foolish policy of waging war on their own people.

Neil Gerrard: I shall try to be brief, because it has become obvious that we are more or less unanimous on this issue, which is unusual even on a subject as serious as this. I welcome the Minister's opening remarks. His message will be welcomed by all my constituents who have contacted me about this issue. A significant number of Tamils live in north and east London and, like many other Members who represent that area, I have received many representations about the situation in Sri Lanka.
	As far as the immediate crisis is concerned, it is obvious, unfortunately, that the Government of Sri Lanka see this as a fight to the end and a way to eliminate the LTTE. The Government do not seem to care what else happens as they try to do that. That is why we see the indiscriminate shelling and bombing of areas that the Government know contain huge numbers of civilians. Even though a safe area was declared, there was no way for people to reach it, so it was an utterly pointless declaration. The Government are not interested in a ceasefire, because they see this as an opportunity, and that is why pressure from outside is so important.
	Above all, we need a ceasefire and we need international observers and non-governmental organisations to be allowed into the north and east of the country. The message about the ceasefire has to be conveyed again and again to the Government of Sri Lanka. As other hon. Members have suggested, we should think seriously about sanctions. For years, the Government there have not been interested in listening to any criticism. I remember some years ago speaking at a rally in Trafalgar square and the day after there was someone outside Downing street holding a placard saying that I was a terrorist and asking the Prime Minister to do something about me—

Tom Brake: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Neil Gerrard: I would rather not do so, because I want to be brief and allow other hon. Members to speak.
	In the longer term, the issue is how we reach a political solution. I fear that the Government, if they are able to occupy militarily all the areas that have been controlled by the LTTE, will not be interested in looking for a political solution. They will think, "That's it, we've won." Whether that will stop a return to guerrilla warfare by the LTTE is another matter, but even if that happens, we will not have a political solution. Enormous pressure needs to be applied from outside. We know the history of arbitrary detentions and disappearances, and other human rights abuses that have gone on and on without anyone being held responsible. That is why, in the end, we need a political solution that recognises the rights of the Tamil people. Without outside pressure and influence, that will not happen. We have to keep the need for a political solution high on our agenda, and consider what we can do through an envoy or mediation. We cannot impose a solution, but we should do whatever we can to encourage it. The message to the Government of Sri Lanka should be clear: they need to make progress towards a political solution.

Peter Bottomley: Our task in the medium term is to try to help people come to terms with history. There is no way of writing up the Sri Lankan issue without pointing fingers one way or another.
	To the Sri Lankans we can say that we recognise that the Sinhalese and the Tamils share the island and, although there can be only one military Government in the country, there must be space for autonomy in terms of economic, cultural and political development.
	It is necessary for the Sri Lankan Government to start saying more openly now how they will provide the space for the Tamils to be represented and have their voices heard, to avoid the feelings of second-class citizenship that have inspired much of the past.
	One of my contemporaries, Rajiv Gandhi, was a victim of this conflict because he sent a peacekeeping force to Sri Lanka from India, and that led to his assassination. I pay tribute to him and to the journalists, whether from the Sinhalese elite—such as the editor of  The Sunday Leader—or others, who have died because they tried to make information available that some wished to keep obscured.
	We know, from imprecise parallels with the violence in Gaza, what can be experienced by civilian populations in areas subject to a change in military control. Most of us accept that there will be a change of military control in that north-east corner of Sri Lanka. The Tokyo quartet is right to ask for an immediate ceasefire to allow people to get away from areas of fighting, and to point out to the Tamil Tiger leaders that there is no point in continued military resistance. They should be told not to make the people around them suffer while the transition takes place.
	I understand the views of most people in this conflict. We cannot do a great deal but in the short term we can aim to save lives and, in the medium term, we can provide the space for some kind of political development so that people can go on trying, however valiantly, imprecisely or unsuccessfully to begin with, to create an island that can contain all the ethnicities that are there.

Phyllis Starkey: I want to speak on behalf of my constituents who are members of the Milton Keynes Tamil forum. I also want to mention another Sri Lankan community in Milton Keynes, the Sri Lankan Muslim community. It is very small but has an equal interest in a Sri Lanka that recognises all its minorities.
	I want to draw attention in particular to an interest of a significant section of the Tamil community, and indeed the wider community, in Milton Keynes. It is an orphanage that has been funded for a great many years by members of all communities in Milton Keynes. It is supported by the Hope Outreach UK charity, which is run by a Tamil GP in Milton Keynes, Dr. Sam Muthuveloe. After it was damaged in the tsunami, the orphanage was rebuilt thanks to contributions from many people in Milton Keynes. It is managed by the Anglican Church, but was bombed by Sri Lankan air force bombers, fortunately after the girls had been evacuated to another area. However, the Government did not know that it was empty when they bombed it.
	My contacts in Milton Keynes have been in direct contact with Foreign Office staff about the girls in the orphanage, because nobody knows where they are. They moved from the original orphanage to Visvamudu and then moved eastwards towards the safe area. For the last week, nobody from outside has known where those girls are. There are about 80 of them and my constituents are extremely concerned about their safety. Anything further that the Government can do to try to locate these Sri Lankan orphans and to get them to safety would be greatly appreciated.
	I want to make two more points. One is about the so-called safe areas that the Government have created and the way in which the Sri Lankan Government keep saying that the civilians can come out and separate themselves from the LTTE and they will be safe. Regrettably, because of the things that have been happening to Sri Lankan Tamils elsewhere in Sri Lanka, at least with the Sri Lankan Government's collusion if not their active participation, the civilians in the north do not feel that they can trust the Government with their safety. That is part of the reason they are not coming out. Of course they are not safe under bombardment, but they are not confident that they would be safe in the hands of the Sri Lankan Government either, particularly since my understanding is that almost all the men who come out are suspected by the Sri Lankan Government of being actively involved with the Tamil Tigers and are therefore under particular threat of harm.
	It is incredibly important that the Sri Lankan Government understand that they have to be seen as a protector of all their citizens and should not just assume that every Tamil is in league with the Tamil Tigers, because they are not, even though all Tamils would, of course, want their individual rights to be respected.
	My second point, which has not yet been made, is about the way the Sri Lankan Government had clearly been planning this onslaught for some time and had, for several years, been indulging in what might be called a massive shopping spree to upgrade their arms so that they were ready to take on the Tamil Tigers. Members of this House have been asking our Government for some time why the Sri Lankan Government were spending so much money on accumulating arms. We have asked them to look at the arms export process and to take into account what one might call disproportionate military expenditure, which might lead one to suspect that a Government were intending to use those arms for external aggression or internal repression. I know that such an approach is more difficult than dealing with it when it is going on, as it is now, but I would be grateful if the Government could take this point away and think about using their military intelligence, if I can put it that way, to try to perceive when a Government might be trying to build up their capacity to be used in a way that we would not support—the Sri Lankan Government have done so.
	I have no illusions about China's putting any pressure on Sri Lanka. China has its own way with its minorities and it probably thinks that the Sri Lankan Government are doing rather a good job, but I wonder whether we could be doing more with the Indian Government. They are, at least, adjacent to Sri Lanka and have an interest in stability in the region. We could enlist their support in trying to get the Sri Lankan Government to see sense and to start pursuing a political solution, not a military one.

Simon Hughes: Yesterday was Sri Lanka's national day. It is a human tragedy almost beyond words that 61 years after that country gained its independence from the UK, independence day was unable to be a cause of celebration for all the peoples—the Sinhala majority, the large Tamil minority, the significant Muslim population mentioned by the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Dr. Starkey), the Burgher population and people of all the great world faiths on that beautiful island.
	I have taken an interest in Tamil issues in this place and outside it for more than 20 years, but not because I have a huge Tamil constituency—I do not. One Tamil organisation has been based by my constituency, although it is not now, but I have some Tamil friends as well as Sinhala friends, and I have known all along that without a generous recognition by the Government of Sri Lanka that they had to govern with all the people and to work out a new constitutional settlement, there would not be peace in that island. We are talking today about a quarter of a million civilians—perhaps more—who are in a terrible state and may be trapped, and about a Tamil population of millions, both at home and abroad. The voices that are heard here are for them.
	Last weekend, 100,000 or more people took part in a demonstration here, which shows the strength of the link that Sri Lanka has with this country. We have a particular responsibility, as we were the colonial power in Sri Lanka for 150 years. It was from us that Sri Lanka gained independence, and it is now a key member of the Commonwealth led by our own Head of State. Hundreds of thousands of people in the Sri Lankan diaspora around the world are looking to those other countries in which Tamils and other Sri Lankan people live to influence the outcome in that country.

Tom Brake: Does my hon. Friend agree that hon. Members who speak out in this House on this issue do so to condemn equally the atrocities committed by both sides, to further humanitarian aid ambitions and to ensure that there is a peaceful solution? We do not condone terrorism: we are implacably opposed to it.

Simon Hughes: Absolutely. Many of us have been accused of being supporters of the Tamil Tigers, but I have never supported terrorism as a way forward in Sri Lanka. My appeal is to the Sri Lankan Government and the LTTE to renounce arms, but the Tamils will do so only if they have confidence that they will be protected. Just as the Sri Lanka Government may not have confidence in many Tamils, for reasons good or bad, so many Tamils will not have confidence in the Government. I am afraid that that is the position on the ground, and that is why the international agencies and organisations such as the UN's Commission on Human Rights, UNICEF, the International Committee of the Red Cross and others need to be present. Only with them there can there be any confidence in the north of Sri Lanka that there can be fair treatment.
	We are thousands of miles away, and we are not the only ones concerned about these matters. I received an e-mail on 3 February, which stated:
	"I have just come back from Colombo myself and I have met persons who are carrying out voluntary service in a small scale in Jaffna secretly, and other affected parts. They want to remain anonymous due to obvious reasons. I couldn't believe what they told me. The very people who are coming out of the troubled areas are kept in open camp with barbed wires around with no proper shelter. They are not allowed outside, nor are any relatives able to contact them or take them away to be looked after. The injured children are taken to the hospital but the mums are not allowed with them. They are crying out for help. This reminds me of the Hitler days and the pictures I have seen on films. What is shown in Colombo is the army handing out food parcels and water bottles and this is all propaganda by the Army and government.
	The person who told me was in tears when he told me that the young are being abused and they now have 55 cases of aids in Jaffna alone. My friend, together with other friends, donated their savings to create more beds in the intensive care unit in Jaffna hospital. Patients are sleeping on the verandahs on mats due to lack of medical help. Considering that Sri Lanka has the largest cabinet in the world with every one of them being provided with bullet proof BMWs, it appears that they can't afford hospital beds."
	The  Sunday Leader newspaper is regarded as the best independent paper in Sri Lanka, and its last editor has been referred to several times. He was assassinated in January, just the other day. An editorial that he had written—published posthumously—made it clear that he suspected that he might well be assassinated. In it, he owned up to being a friend of the President, so it was not a personal attack. He wrote:
	"A military occupation of the country's north and east will require the Tamil people of those regions to live eternally as second-class citizens, deprived of all self respect. Do not imagine that you can placate them by showering 'development' and 'reconstruction' on them in the post-war era.
	The wounds of war will scar them forever, and you will also have an even more bitter and hateful diaspora to contend with."
	People who have lived all their lives in Sri Lanka are calling out to us, and the journalist I have just quoted gave his life in the cause of independence and freedom.
	I wish to join colleagues in unanimously making the strongest possible statements about the situation in Sri Lanka. First, a ceasefire should be accepted immediately, as should the presence of the UN and the relief agencies. In addition, there needs to be a free press: Sri Lanka has the second worst record on press freedom in the world, behind only Eritrea.
	Secondly, there has to be a reference to the UN, the Commonwealth and other bodies, so that the international community can make their voices clearer. There may be a case for reference to the International Criminal Court. At least one Sri Lankan Minister is an American citizen, and there may be a war crimes issue to be dealt with.
	The hon. Member for Milton Keynes, South-West, rightly made the point that the Indian Government could be hugely influential. Many people in Tamil Nadu who are Tamil by definition are about to vote in the Indian general election. They are an important part of the make-up of democracy in India. We should have a try with China and Iran, too, however difficult and unproductive that may be.
	Above all, we have to keep focused on the fact that a political solution will be needed. The current position is what Northern Ireland would be like if only Protestants were ever to play a part in the constitutional future of the Province. We know how foolish that idea was, and the situation there is different now. Unless Tamil people have a proper part in the future, and can determine their own part and their level of autonomy, there will not be peace. My call, and that of colleagues, is for the people of Sri Lanka at home and abroad to make it clear that the current politics of the Sri Lankan Government will never succeed. The Sri Lankan Government should realise that they need to be as magnanimous as other failing dictatorships have been; and that until they are, they will not have peace on their island. This is probably the most important issue facing the Commonwealth, and one of the most important facing the United Nations.

Siobhain McDonagh: If fine words and knowledge could bring an end to the conflict, it would end after this debate. There are Members on both sides of the Chamber who speak far better and far more knowledgeably than I, but with every word uttered, I become more frustrated on behalf of all the UK Tamils who live in my constituency and the constituencies of other hon. Members. I become more concerned about what young Tamil British people will think about our ability to spread our ideas of democracy and free speech if we cannot take action against the Sri Lankan Government.
	I urge my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and his team of Ministers to go and see, in the next few minutes, how we could bring about the suspension of Sri Lanka from the Commonwealth. We need to do something that hurts. The Sri Lankan Government clearly believe that within the next few days, they will have sorted out the Tamil Tigers and that the Tamil problem will, for them, be over. However, as so many Members have said, it is only just beginning; we know that from our own history. We need to do something large and bold. We need to take a step.
	I thank the members of my Government who have worked so hard in the past few weeks, following pressure from us Back Benchers. There are so many problems in the world, and how many friends do the Tamils have? Sri Lanka is not a large country, and there is not a great deal of publicity, which frustrates Tamils very much, whereas the Sri Lankan Government have so many big and important friends. On behalf of the Tamil community and all the Tamils who live in my constituency, I ask my Government to do what they can to get the Sri Lankan Government suspended from the Commonwealth.

Stephen Hammond: I am grateful for this opportunity to say a few words. I will try to be brief so that the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love), who is the chairman of the all-party group on Sri Lanka, can say a few words. It is clear and important that today in the House we heard strong words of criticism from the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the hon. Member for Harlow (Bill Rammell), and from my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson), on the unfolding humanitarian crisis. That must be important to the Sri Lankan Government, and to our Tamil constituents, who feel the oppression.
	As early as last April, it was quite clear that the Sri Lankan Government's next push would be to do what they have since done. I had the privilege of visiting Sri Lanka as a member of the all-party group last year. The reason why I intervened on my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk was that we saw some progress in the east, even before the provincial council elections. We went to Jaffna, although our high commission tried to persuade us not to. Walking down the high street, we had the chance to meet some people who lived there. It is absolutely clear that Jaffna is, to all intents and purposes, a prison camp. There is a continuing problem there. Although the Sri Lankan Government think that they will have a military victory, there will be no victory unless there is a political solution.
	The Tokyo quartet is absolutely right to say to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, "Lay down your arms to make sure that there is no loss of life." The Minister may well take on board the points made about pressure at the UN and the need for an envoy, but the Sri Lankan Government must commit to an immediate ceasefire, too. They must ensure safe passage not only for the poor innocent people currently affected by the conflict, but for those who come to the ceasefire table and for the UN human rights mission. Will the Minister consider speaking to the Sri Lankan Government about a process that we learned in Northern Ireland—the de Chastelain de-armament process, which is binding on both sides—to accompany the ceasefire?
	Looking ahead, the eastern model may not be perfect, but it could be the basis for a solution. The Government must be made to realise that there cannot be a military victory in any credible international sense. A victory without a political solution for all Sri Lankans will be worthless. Without a negotiated solution and universal suffrage, the economic, cultural and political resentments of the Tamil community which have fuelled the conflict will remain unresolved and nothing will have been gained.
	I urge the Minister in his representations to consider not just the call for an immediate ceasefire, but for the measures that must accompany it. I listened to the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), who dismissed my point about sanctions. In other parts of the world we have seen sanctions hurt the very people we want to help. We must ensure that any sanctions that we impose hurt the people we intend to hurt.

Andrew Love: May I add my voice to those heard from all parts of the House, including from the Minister, calling in the strongest possible terms for the Sri Lankan Government to do everything they can to minimise the humanitarian disaster that we are beginning to see unfolding in the north of the island? Yesterday, according to the UN, 52 innocent civilians died. Many hon. Members have spoken about the 250,000 Tamils trapped between opposing forces. We have heard about the so-called safe area, yet all the evidence suggests that that is currently being bombed, with excuses for that being made on both sides. Even the one hospital available for those innocently wounded in the conflict has been bombed and has had to close.
	The Sri Lankan army seems determined, as many hon. Members have said, to eradicate the LTTE. That is perhaps not surprising, given the history of the conflict. However, that appears to have blinded the army and, more important, the Government to the plight of innocent civilians in that part of the country. On the other side, Amnesty is reporting today that a convoy of 300 innocent wounded civilians, including 50 children, was prevented from leaving the area by the LTTE. The first thing we all need to agree on is the urgent need for humanitarian relief. That should combine a corridor to allow innocent civilians to get out of the trap in which they are caught with a UN assistance mission to provide food and medicines to people in the north of the island.
	Let me deal briefly with three issues. Many hon. Members have commented on the growing climate of intolerance of any form of criticism, characterised by the comments from the Sri Lankan Defence Minister in recent days about the irresponsible behaviour of the BBC and CNN. If his intervention were not bad enough, we have seen the recent attacks on journalists, the media and even human rights activists in Sri Lanka. Many people have died in mysterious circumstances or have left the country because of the climate of intolerance, and we hear daily of the abduction, detention and disappearance of people on the island. I urge the Minister to raise the issue at the highest level. There must be independent investigation to root out why such human rights abuses are happening.
	Everybody has asked whether there will be a military victory. One is undoubtedly possible, but the important point is that that would not be the end of the violence; all independent opinion tells us that. The Sri Lankan Government have not dealt with the underlying causes of the conflict: the real grievances felt by the Tamil community and the aspirations that are rarely discussed in Government circles. I have been saddened that the call for a ceasefire has not been met with any support from either side, but I am particularly sad that the Government have rejected the opportunity to negotiate with the other side so that the situation could move forward from being a military conflict to being a peace settlement. That needs to happen, otherwise there will be guerrilla warfare again and terrorist activity might even intensify. The reality is that the conflict will not occur only in the north of the island; it will be taken to all quarters of it, and that cannot be right.
	There is a need for a political solution, which is more urgent now because of recent events. There is a climate of bitterness and enmity, even greater than before, because of what has happened in the north of the island. Inevitably, that has polarised opinion. That is not the fertile soil on which we can build a peace process. The Sri Lankan Government tell us that there will be elections, but those are almost certain to be boycotted. They will have—
	 One and a half hours having elapsed since the commencement of proceedings, the motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 24A).

Afghanistan and Pakistan

David Miliband: I beg to move,
	That this House has considered the matter of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
	Few subjects are more important in foreign policy today than security and stability in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Few subjects are more pressing, and few are more complicated. That is why the Government have initiated this debate and why I look forward to contributions from both sides of the House—not just today, but throughout the year ahead.
	This is an important moment for this debate. Pakistan is struggling to deal with its turbulent tribal areas, and Afghanistan faces presidential and provincial elections this year. As NATO approaches its 60th-anniversary summit in April, it faces important questions about its performance and rationale. Furthermore, the new United States Administration are reviewing their approach to both Pakistan and Afghanistan—and, critically, looking at their approaches to those two countries together.
	Today I met special envoy Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, a man of enormous diplomatic distinction. I warmly welcome his appointment and his strong commitment to working closely with the United Kingdom. I hope that the House will understand if I am not in my place at the end of this debate; I shall be meeting General David Petraeus, commander of the United States Central Command, or Centcom, and a key decision maker on American policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
	The subject of this debate is the challenge posed by Afghanistan and Pakistan together; the two countries need to be seen together. A mix of violent extremist groups poison the tribal belt on both sides of the Durand line. There are intimate connections between the insurgency in Helmand and that in Waziristan, and between the criminals, spoilers and terrorists who operate in Kandahar and Quetta, Peshawar and Nangahar. A combined and comprehensive approach is needed. However, the responses in each country have to be different. In Afghanistan, a UN-mandated, NATO and EU-supported international effort—military and civilian—helps the Government. In Pakistan, the international community must play a different role in supporting the new, democratic Government in their response to violent extremism.

Philip Hollobone: Is not part of the problem the fact that Pakistan does not see the world as we do? To a large extent, Pakistan is fixated on its conflict with India and does not consider the insurgency in Afghanistan and its northern territories to be as important as we do.

David Miliband: There is merit in that argument. When I have met the leaders of Pakistan during my four visits over the past 18 months, I have made the point that the modern, mortal threat to Pakistan comes from the terrorism within its own borders. The Government's and the military's attention to those problems is imperative.
	Our overriding objective in Afghanistan and Pakistan is to deny al-Qaeda a base from which to launch attacks of the kind that we saw on 11 September 2001. That means, first, reducing the insurgency on both sides of the Durand line to the level where it is unable to overwhelm Afghan or Pakistani forces; secondly, preventing core al-Qaeda from returning to Afghanistan—it must be defeated in Pakistan's tribal areas as well—and thirdly, ensuring that Afghanistan remains a legitimate state and becomes more effective and able to handle its own security.

Michael Ancram: rose—

Malcolm Rifkind: rose—

David Miliband: I am spoilt for choice between two such distinguished right hon. and learned Gentlemen. If the right hon. and learned Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) will allow me, I will take an intervention from my predecessor.

Malcolm Rifkind: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for the difficult conclusion that he reached on that immediate question.
	While I very much agree with what the Foreign Secretary said about the main objective in Afghanistan being to deny al-Qaeda the opportunity ever to use the country as a base again, will he specifically endorse the welcome recent comments by the Secretary of Defence Robert Gates in the United States, who said, probably for the first time, that we must lower expectations about nation building, not because those objectives are not desirable but because they cannot be realised in the short to medium term?

David Miliband: I would say two things about that. First, I rather think that Secretary Gates was endorsing an approach to this issue that has been outlined by the Prime Minister and me over the past year and a half. I think that he talked about not trying to build Valhalla in Kandahar; last year, I spoke about trying not to think that genteel British suburbia would be built in Kabul. There is unanimity on that point.
	Secondly, it is important to say that in both Pakistan and Afghanistan the sustenance of a democratic state is one of the primary steps towards nation building, so I would not want to get into too strong a distinction. However, I completely agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman that we should set our objectives at the right level. If people have any sense of inflated expectations, which has not come from this country, I would invite them to visit Afghanistan and Pakistan and realise what the real agenda is.

Michael Ancram: I am grateful to the Foreign Secretary for giving way. I always take my lead from my erstwhile neighbour in Edinburgh, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind).
	As someone who strongly supported our involvement in Afghanistan in 2001, may I ask the Foreign Secretary whether we have now reached the time when we must recognise the elephant on the doorstep? We are fighting a war in the south-east part of Afghanistan which, in the end, we cannot win. Our objective of setting up a transparent democracy is sinking into the mire of corruption in Kabul. Is it not time that we fundamentally reassessed our involvement in Afghanistan?

David Miliband: If the right hon. and learned Gentleman means that we should withdraw from our commitments to Afghanistan, I do not agree with that fundamental reassessment. It is clear from my experience, and that of everyone I have talked to, that the withdrawal of British and other international forces would lead to the collapse of Afghanistan's first democratic Government and to the overwhelming of the Afghan state, with very serious consequences. After all, Afghanistan is the incubator of choice for al-Qaeda. For that reason, we have a central national interest in sustaining the ability of the democratic Government in Afghanistan to defend themselves. The critical point, as I shall try to explain, is that we are not in Afghanistan to create a new colony; we are there to enable the Afghan people, the Afghan Government and the Afghan state to defend themselves.

Mike Gapes: My right hon. Friend will know that the Foreign Affairs Committee is about to begin an inquiry into Pakistan and Afghanistan; no doubt he and Ministers will give evidence to us in coming months. He mentioned the Durand line. Does he agree that one of the fundamental problems in the relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan is that the Afghan Government do not accept that border and there is almost open movement between the two countries, which makes it almost impossible to deal with the problem of terrorism and insurgency on both sides?

David Miliband: I would certainly say that disputes over the Durand line get in the way of the sort of co-operation that is necessary. However, as I shall say later, the fact that President Karzai and President Zadari have broken the taboo of the past eight years and are now working together, rather than pointing fingers at each other, is one of the important steps forward that has happened in the past six or seven months.
	Having outlined what I see as the objectives, it is important to pay tribute—with the support of the whole House, I am sure—to the soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen and women who risked their lives for the mission in Afghanistan. It is also important to recognise the efforts of British diplomats and aid workers who have risked their lives, although under the protection of the armed forces. The armed forces in Afghanistan serve with unflinching courage and professionalism, which I have seen for myself, and they are a credit to the nation. It is right to salute not just their courage but their sacrifice. Some 143 members of the armed services tragically lost their lives in Afghanistan. Their friends and family need to know that the country will never forget them or their loved ones. It is also important to recognise the sacrifices of the Afghan army and police, and of the Pakistani army and frontier corps, as well as the thousands of ordinary Afghans and Pakistanis who have lost their lives in the conflict.
	Today, I want to address the Government's view of the current situation and of the future. The insurgency is changing its shape, but not receding. In parts of each country, the sense of security for ordinary people, as well as for coalition forces, is deteriorating. In Afghanistan, the insurgents are increasingly relying on asymmetric tactics. There has been a fourfold increase in the use of improvised explosive devices in Helmand province over the past year. The Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies reported more than 2,000 terrorist, insurgent and sectarian attacks there last year. It was the most violent year in the FATA—the federally administered tribal areas—in Pakistan's history.
	In Afghanistan, corruption is widespread and is not receiving the treatment it needs. Elections have been set for August, but political uncertainty remains over that debate. Our commitment is to support credible elections in Afghanistan. In that context, I am pleased to commit a further £10.6 million to support the elections, predominantly funded by the Department for International Development, in addition to the £6 million that we have already provided. Our contribution will support election operations run by the independent election commission in Afghanistan.
	On the economic front, Afghanistan remains an extremely poor country. Despite growth in recent years, more than half the population still live on less than $1 a day, and last year Pakistan saw its currency tumble and inflation soar. There is, however, another side of the ledger. As I indicated, the lead of Presidents Karzai and Zardari has led to improved cross-border co-operation between Afghanistan and Pakistan. I heard for myself from General Kayani about the new co-operation between coalition forces and the Pakistani forces in the northern part of the FATA.
	Over the past year in Helmand, we have seen the Afghan authorities, with our support and encouragement, retake three districts: Musa Qala in the north, Garmsir in the south, and Nad-e 'Ali in the centre. The number of districts under Government control has doubled, and more than half the population of the province are now under the jurisdiction of the legitimate Afghan Government for the first time. A dynamic new Interior Minister, Hanif Atmar, has been appointed and is at last starting to deal with the state of his ministry and critically, the police service that it supervises.
	Meanwhile, opium cultivation is down 19 per cent. on last year. The number of poppy-free provinces has risen to 18, covering more than half the country's provinces, and the legal Afghan economy continues to grow, helped by the record $21 billion of assistance pledged in Paris last June. The benefits of that growth are still very patchy, but today 6 million children are in school, compared with only 2 million in 2002. Many more people have access to basic health care and child mortality rates are falling.

Robert Smith: On overseas development aid, when the International Development Committee was there in 2007-08 to produce our report, one of the facts put to us was that the US was spending six times as much on aid as the UK, but achieving only twice the impact on the ground. With the new wish to engage in Afghanistan on the part of the United States, it is the time to work. We are seeing some straws in the wind, with the US beginning to see the UK approach as more effective in the delivery of aid in the more stable parts of Afghanistan.

David Miliband: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. However, one of the worst things we can do is to be smug and self-satisfied about our performance and recommend that other countries "copy" us. However, his point that our experience of promoting development of the legal economy, especially agriculture, in Afghanistan will be of widespread interest is absolutely right.
	As it happens, I talked to Ambassador Holbrooke this morning about the wheat distribution programme that has been developed by Governor Mangal in Helmand, which I saw for myself when I visited Garmsir last year. That programme is helping farmers to choose legal production rather than opium production, which is significant. I also spoke to Secretary Clinton, who has bold ideas about how she wants to reconfigure the US aid effort. I think that I am right in saying that there are a large number of funding streams to Afghanistan from the US development effort, and we certainly want to work closely with the US as it reviews that matter.

Adam Holloway: Did Secretary Clinton mention anything about reconciliation and bringing the Taliban and organisations such as Hizb-e-Islami into the political process? Is it true that President Karzai called for a jihad against us in a Cabinet meeting recently?

David Miliband: I have seen no report to that effect, and whenever I meet President Karzai he tells me that he is very committed to the partnership between Britain and Afghanistan. However, one must acknowledge that although he rightly has a fair degree of anger about civilian deaths, that sometimes spills over into rather more generalised attacks on the role of coalition forces that could give a different impression. The hon. Gentleman asks about reconciliation. I shall certainly address it, as it is an important part of the agenda. I assure him that I will come to that, and if he does not feel that I have covered it, he should intervene again.

Paul Flynn: The civilian deaths have been a formidable obstacle to our attempts to win hearts and minds. We have heard of a British officer being brought home for allegedly giving information to Human Rights Watch about the extent of civilian deaths. Human Rights Watch claims that there were about 1,600 such deaths last year, and the United Nations Association puts the figure at more than 2,000. What is the Foreign Secretary's estimate of the number of civilian deaths that were caused last year?

David Miliband: I am not going to make an estimate today, but I am happy to write to my hon. Friend with the best estimate that we have. He is right to say that civilian deaths are a major cause of disaffection among the local population. I hope that he will be reassured that one thing that we are working actively on with NATO command and our American and other coalition partners is how to minimise coalition deaths and promote openness and transparency with the Afghan Government when such tragedies occur.

Bernard Jenkin: I am a little startled that the Foreign Secretary has not used this opportunity to put on record how much we regret causing civilian deaths in Afghanistan. Will he do that?

David Miliband: Of course. In response to the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Paul Flynn), it is obvious that when one describes civilian deaths as a tragedy, one is saying that one does not just regret them but regrets them deeply, both for the sake of the individuals concerned and for the message that they send more widely. One of the first principles of British action anywhere in the world is the need to minimise civilian deaths, not just because it is a legal obligation but because there is a moral obligation. It is also a material factor in whether the coalition effort succeeds.

Chris Mullin: Does not much of the problem with civilian deaths arise from the fact that part of the American force is not part of the NATO operation? Those forces do not appear to co-operate. That part of the American force is careless about what it gets up to. Three times, it has bombed wedding parties.

David Miliband: It is for that reason that General McKiernan is now in charge of both the NATO operation and Operation Enduring Freedom. That is an important step forward and speaks to the need for co-operation between the two forces.
	As for Pakistan, the £7.6 billion International Monetary Fund loan that it secured last November has helped to plug the hole in its balance of payments, and it is making progress in implementing the accompanying economic reform programme. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and I, along with many others, have urged faster and further action against those associated with the Mumbai attacks, and prosecution and then punishment for those found guilty. Clearly, however, the fight cannot be won by military means alone. Military action needs to be backed by a comprehensive political and economic plan, and that is the prospect that is now held out in the Holbrooke review.
	As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made clear in his statement to the House on Afghanistan in December 2007, and again a year later, the key to our policy is helping the Afghans stabilise and govern their country. Let me highlight today three important issues for the future, including reconciliation, which the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Holloway) mentioned.
	The first principle of our policy is to build the capacity of the Afghan state to root out the insurgency and provide basic security and justice for its citizens. By building up the Afghan national army—now around 60,000 or 65,000 strong—and creating an Afghan national police force worthy of its name, we are working to strengthen indigenous Afghan capacity for the long term. In creating systems of governance and of justice, at district, provincial and national level, we are trying to ensure sustainability by working with the grain of Afghan tradition.
	The Department for International Development's work to reform the civil service and ensure transparent allocation of Government funds will help make the state more credible and more effective at delivering basic services. By supporting 18,000 community development councils, and providing small business loans to more than 280,000 Afghan women, the Department is empowering some of the poorest communities to take more responsibility for their security and development.
	The second element that I want to highlight is political reconciliation. Al-Qaeda draws its support from being part of a wider insurgency that seeks to usurp the authority of the state. However, the insurgents are neither strong nor united. They have different motivations and come from different backgrounds: ideological Taliban, $10-a-day Taliban, fighters from beyond the region, criminals and narco-traffickers, warlords and wannabe local power brokers.
	The insurgents are not popular. In poll after poll, the people say that they have tried Taliban rule and detested the experience. However, they dread their return, and doubt the local authorities' ability to resist them, so they hedge their bets. They support them out of fear rather than free will.
	Our strategy is to help the Afghan Government divide the insurgency, and co-opt those who are prepared to renounce al-Qaeda, obey the laws and accept the principles of the Afghan constitution. Equipping the Afghan authorities with the means and the authority to conduct such reconciliation activity both nationally and—critically, in my view, locally—is key to the future.
	Thirdly, there is military force. By pressurising those who refuse to co-operate with the Afghan state, and protecting those who do, it can directly support political reconciliation. By enabling the Afghans to secure and stabilise their territory, then delivering aid and promoting development, the military show not only that the insurgents can be defeated, but what is possible once they have gone.
	There is no purely military solution to the problems of insurgency and disorder in Helmand or across Afghanistan generally. However, equally, there is no non-military solution. That is why our approach—creating a combined civil-military mission in Helmand, staffed by some 65 civilians and some 55 military officers, and led by a civilian—has been so important, and, I believe, right. It is also why, when I say that Britain is in Afghanistan as part of an international effort, I refer not only to the NATO-led military force of some 41 nations, but the civil alliance, which encompasses some 60 nations and international organisations.

Paul Flynn: My right hon. Friend is being generous in giving way. Does he recall that we had a military surge in Helmand province, as a result of which the number of British deaths increased from seven in 2006 to 143 now? Will not any military surge by NATO be met by an even bigger surge by the Taliban?

David Miliband: It depends. If my hon. Friend is saying that a military surge must be accompanied by a political and an economic surge if it is to succeed, he is right. That is the essence of what we are trying to do. Before we went there, Helmand was ungoverned space—certainly, it was not governed by the Kabul authorities. Although my hon. Friend is right to point to the high number of deaths on the British side, it is also right to say that, for the first time, more than half the province is being properly governed—not by us, but by Governor Mangal. That must be a step forward.
	The Government are determined to improve donor co-ordination, and to strengthen the role of the excellent UN special representative of the Secretary-General and his mission. We talk a lot about improving Afghan governance, and it is important to put on record our commitment to improving international governance, too. The Afghan authorities are right when they say that too much of the international effort is confused or confusing, and too much of it fails to get maximum, optimum benefit—

Bernard Jenkin: At last!

David Miliband: I know that the hon. Gentleman believes that a sinner that repenteth is worth double, but I do not believe that the Government have sinned in the matter, because of our arguments for reforming the international system, not least since before the appointment of the new special representative and all that went with that about a year ago, and our placing the need to improve the international effort at the centre of our activities. That is also why we have been active in promoting better burden sharing, not only among the military allies, but in the civilian coalition, through the UK-French helicopter initiative, for example.

Bernard Jenkin: rose—

David Miliband: I want to turn to the Pakistani side of the border, but I will let the hon. Gentleman have his last go.

Bernard Jenkin: I am most grateful to the Foreign Secretary—I will make best use of it. As we are putting the international house in order, may I suggest that the Government put their house in order and open up the discussion that is needed between the military and DFID about how our military forces can use cash instead of military force to achieve the effects that they want? At the moment, our forces do not have access to nearly enough cash. The result is that they resort to military force instead, which is not only much more destructive, but much more expensive.

David Miliband: I understand the hon. Gentleman's point, which is an important one. It is not fair to say that our military "resort to force" because they have no alternative. They resort to force when they need to. They are the first to say that their success depends on close work with DFID and Foreign Office diplomats. The civilian-military mission, and in particular the way that it brings together the British Government's different resources in the south, points the way forward.
	I think that the hon. Gentleman is referring to the experience of how the American forces work, in contrast with ours. We will go into our discussions with the Americans not just keen for them to learn from our experience, but keen to learn from theirs, too. I understand the hon. Gentleman's point, but I would say that the caricature of the right hand of the military not knowing what the left hand of DFID is doing is indeed a caricature, and is not accurate.

Adam Holloway: Will the Foreign Secretary give way?

David Miliband: I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman and we have only three hours for this debate, so in the interests of time, I should probably press on. However, let us see how I get on. If I can get to the end of my speech, I shall try to bring him in.
	Let me say a word about Pakistan, a nation of 170 million people faced with growing disorder, which is spreading slowly from the tribal areas. When I visited Islamabad last month, it was clear that both the civilian and the military leadership now recognised the severity of the threat from violent extremism. It is vital that we and other members of the international community support the democratic Government at this time, because a sustained focus on the terrorist threat requires Pakistan to take ownership of the struggle against violent extremism. It also requires determined action to root out existing terrorist networks across the country and prevent new ones from emerging. That means a comprehensive plan to increase security, improve governance and promote economic development in the federally administered tribal areas, FATA—60 years after the creation of the state of Pakistan, the female literacy rate there is below 3 per cent.—in order to complement the military actions being taken there. A sustained focus on the terrorist threat also means working with the Government of Afghanistan on a joint plan to address the insurgency on both sides of the border.
	To support that work, the UK is providing extensive bilateral counter-terrorism assistance. As well as providing training to build the Pakistani Government's counter-terrorism capacity, we have an active campaign to counter the ideology of extremism that feeds support for terrorism. International moderate Islamic scholars and ordinary British Muslims have taken part in the efforts to tackle al-Qaeda's distorted and divisive message, through public meetings and multi-media campaigns.
	We are also providing long-term development assistance, with bilateral aid of some £480 million to help poor and vulnerable people in Pakistan. Over the next three years, Pakistan will become one of the UK's largest aid recipients, because we believe that tackling poverty and exclusion are key to addressing the underlying causes of the conflict and insecurity in that country. DFID is expanding its assistance in education, for example. We will be increasing our development work in the areas bordering Afghanistan and we recently began work to strengthen the police in Pakistan's most troubled North West Frontier province. We are also supporting the Pakistani Government's attempt to stabilise and reform their economy. It is also vital that we mobilise practical and political support for Pakistan from across the international community, for example through the international Friends of Democratic Pakistan group.
	I mentioned international co-operation and want to say a word about the regional context of our work in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Stability and development in both countries requires the active co-operation and engagement of neighbours and the broader region. A strong relationship is being built between Presidents Karzai and Zardari; there is Iranian investment in western Afghanistan and infrastructure development linking central and southern Asia. The countries of the region have a clear stake. The narcotics trade has hit Iran and Russia particularly hard, and conflict and instability are undermining the trade relationships that could strengthen regional economies and help lift people out of poverty.
	The challenge is to build on existing links and turn political will into real change for ordinary people. Afghanistan and Pakistan should use the new excellent relations between their Presidents to build a broader working structure that can deliver concrete progress. Iran must decide that it will focus on positive engagement, rather than using Afghanistan as another opportunity for confrontation with the west. Pakistan needs to show its neighbours that it is determined to address the terrorist threat, and Afghanistan must secure the engagement of the broader region, involving Chinese investment, Indian development assistance and increased Russian engagement.
	The people of Afghanistan and Pakistan face immense challenges. Our choice, at great cost, has been to help them to meet them. We do so out of a clear view of our national interest in working with other countries to address terrorism at root. This is the rationale of our mission and, with the majority of terrorist plots against the UK linked back to Pakistan alone, no one believes that the threat is not real.

Adam Holloway: Does the Foreign Secretary not feel, particularly after his conversations with the Americans, that we can now either go left or go right? We can go the way that we have gone so far, which is leading us to disaster, or we can be a bit more intelligent and work very hard for a political settlement, backed up by force if necessary.

David Miliband: The hon. Gentleman would expect me to say that it is always better to be more intelligent than less intelligent in the way we approach these problems. The burden of my speech today has been to say that there is an opportunity to review what is going right and what is not, and to change what is going wrong and reinforce what is going right. A regional focus is now emerging, which includes Pakistan and not just Afghanistan. That is something that Britain has urged for a long time. There is also a stress on Afghanisation, which was a feature of the Prime Minister's statement here in December 2007, and an emphasis on civilianisation and localisation. These form a package that can unite not only the coalition but, critically, Afghans and Pakistanis on this difficult and long-term issue.

Tobias Ellwood: Will the Foreign Secretary give way?

David Miliband: No, sorry.
	Our tactics are not static. In the coming months, the organisation of the international effort, its focus and its balance will be renewed. The military and civil approach will be addressed, and international co-operation with the Afghan and Pakistani Governments and people will also be reviewed. However, the strategic commitment to build the capacity of the Afghan state will remain, and strengthening counter-terrorism in Pakistan will be essential. That is the only way to tackle the insurgency. The UK will enter the discussions in the months ahead with clarity about our insights from the past and determination to see a coherent and focused international effort for the future. On that basis, I look forward to taking into these discussions the ideas and views expressed today.

William Hague: May I begin by welcoming the Government's decision to hold this all too short debate on one of the most pressing and intractable foreign policy challenges of our time? The Foreign Secretary has spoken of the decisions and reviews that will take place over the coming months. When we come to look back in future years, we are likely to find that the decisions that are made in the coming weeks will have been of decisive importance to the war raging in parts of Afghanistan and in Pakistan's tribal areas. The strategy now being worked on by General Petraeus and the Obama Administration is likely to be the one that leads either to eventual success—however we define that—or to the failure of our hopes for this deeply troubled part of the world.
	As matters unfold over the coming months, I hope that the Government will be prepared to give more time on the Floor of the House to these important issues. The Foreign Secretary will know that, for some time, we have argued for regular, detailed, quarterly reports to the House when British troops are engaged in prolonged action, with an explanation and assessment of objectives set and attained, and of the policy intentions and resources allocated for the future. In the absence of such reports, the Government have sometimes elided one stated objective into another less ambitious one, without much formal acknowledgment to Parliament. I will give the Foreign Secretary some examples, because he is looking a bit doubtful about that. For instance, the lead role for the United Kingdom in combating the Afghan narcotics trade was clearly trumpeted in our original objectives. However, the conversion of that lead role into a lower-key partner nation role emerged only in answers to written parliamentary questions.
	As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) has pointed out, we have recently seen a change of tone in how the objectives are spoken of by the US Defence Secretary, in a probably inevitable move away from idealism to realism that we should welcome. However, it was only through written parliamentary questions that we discovered that 17 British officials have, quite rightly, been working with, and effectively embedded within, the American strategy review.

Denis MacShane: Good!

William Hague: Yes, it is very good, but perhaps Parliament should be informed of these things, without the information having to be elicited all the time through written answers. We were told on 26 November last year in a written answer from the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the hon. Member for Harlow (Bill Rammell):
	"A formal review mechanism was initiated this year"—
	that is, last year; that
	"the first detailed periodic assessment covering the preceding 12 month period will be completed by the end of 2008"
	and that
	"the House will be informed of the implications of the assessment."—[ Official Report, 26 November 2008; Vol. 483, c. 1742-43W.]
	However, it is not evident that that review has been completed or that the House has been informed of the implications of the assessment.
	The Prime Minister announced a week later that he was leading a review of Afghanistan policy, bringing all the Departments together. I say to Ministers, however, that it is not clear from outside the Government what form that review will take or why the periodic assessment was not complete at the end of last year. From what one can tell from outside the Government, there are several overlapping processes going on rather than a single review. They include a process that the Prime Minister chairs in person but irregularly, trilateral meetings between the three relevant Departments chaired by the Foreign Secretary, an Afghanistan strategy group separate from that, a separate senior officials group and three separate strategy teams within the relevant Departments. I would be happy to be told that matters are better co-ordinated than that sounds, but it puzzles me why this work does not take place as a single integrated review under the auspices of the National Security Committee that the Prime Minister announced in July 2007. A Downing street website lists the responsibilities of that Committee as discussing
	"all issues relating to defence and counter-terrorism, including international defence and security",
	but the setting up of separate reviews of Afghanistan policy suggests that the Committee is not working together as an integrated departmental forum.
	I make those points because the way government functions is fundamental to the consistent pursuit of a sound strategy and because there have undoubtedly been difficulties in co-operation between the relevant Departments in previous conflicts, which is one reason why I believe there are important lessons to be learned from the circumstances of the war in Iraq and why there should be no further delay in establishing an inquiry into the origins and conduct of the Iraq war.
	Turning to the situation in Afghanistan now, it is clear to all of us who have visited that country in recent times that British servicemen and women—and, indeed, the diplomats and aid workers to whom the Foreign Secretary referred—do a job that is often little short of heroic and sometimes literally heroic, fighting in conditions of extreme heat or cold, spending long periods in close proximity to the enemy and using equipment often not originally designed for such situations or terrain.
	In the last year, according to international security assistance force officials, there has been an increase of a third in the number of attacks against coalition forces, and of course a huge increase, to which the Foreign Secretary referred, in the number of improvised explosive device attacks in Helmand province against our own troops. All that is in the context of a truly vast country with huge deserts and dramatic mountain ranges. Seeing such terrain with one's own eyes brings home how difficult it is for relatively small numbers of troops to control that sort of formidable terrain. As the noble Lord Ashdown pointed out last week in an article in  The Times:
	"We are trying to win in Afghanistan with one twenty-fifth of the troops and one-fiftieth of the aid per head than in Bosnia. And... Afghanistan is much more difficult."
	In Helmand province the scale and difficulty of this challenge have meant that our forces have only relatively small areas under permanent and secure control—a situation that has made the delivery of aid and reconstruction projects extremely difficult and the eradication of the narcotics trade, for the moment, impossible. Our troops do a wonderful job not only in relations with local communities but, of course, in military terms, winning every tactical encounter and often inflicting sustained and serious damage on their enemy. But as we all know, that is not the same as controlling the ground or achieving a strategic victory.
	The Taliban's intended route to a strategic victory is, I think, discernible. It is to confine our forces in Helmand and other NATO forces in difficult areas near their bases, while attacking NATO's supply lines and beginning to make life more difficult in Kabul itself, so that it starts to feel being closed in on. Following the destruction of a bridge in the Khyber pass in recent days and the apparent intention of the Government of Kyrgyzstan to deny the United States the use of the Manas air base, Ministers may wish to expand at the end of the debate on the outlook for NATO's supply lines and assure the House that the operations of our troops will not be endangered by any disruptions to military and civilian supplies.
	History teaches us that embarking on an attempt to conquer Afghanistan would be a foolish exercise, and military experts would tell us that any such attempt would require many times the level of forces that the United States and the rest of NATO have committed. But that, of course, has never been the objective. Our purpose has been to permit the people of Afghanistan to decide their own future in a way that enhances their own security and livelihoods without presenting a danger to the rest of the world. Success has therefore been predicated on popular support rather than military force on its own, for none of us has ever believed that there was a purely military solution to this conflict.
	The great problem now appears to be that support among the Afghan people on a sufficiently widespread basis that the Taliban and its allies would find it impossible to prosecute the war depends on at least four factors being in place. The first is visibly effective reconstruction of the Afghan economy and infrastructure across the country; the second is effective government that is respected and not seen as arbitrary or corrupt; the third is relative security for Afghan families and communities; and the fourth is a perception of inevitable success rather than uncertainty about the outcome.
	I think it fair to say that the reason our troops are having such a difficult time in realising the vision of a peaceful and democratic Afghanistan is that at present none of those four essential requirements for their success is in place. The result is, at best, a strategic stalemate, and that is what the current review of strategy, particularly that taking place in Washington, must obviously set out to break.
	It is hugely welcome that President Obama has said all along, and said throughout this election campaign, that he would bring an urgent and fresh focus to Afghanistan, and has also said something confirmed by the appointment of Ambassador Holbrooke: that the United States will regard the issues of Afghanistan and Pakistan as an integrated whole. That General Petraeus, whom the Foreign Secretary will talk to later, is at the centre of Washington's strategic review is enormously encouraging, because he has shown in Iraq a keen sense of the need for political and military progress to run alongside each other. We now await details of the action proposed when the review has been completed. We hope that Ministers here will make a fresh statement in parallel with any announcements made in Washington, rather than the British Parliament's hearing about what is to happen on CNN one afternoon when we are not expecting it.

Denis MacShane: The right hon. Gentleman quoted President Obama, who said just before his election "Afghanistan is a priority for me. The solution to Afghanistan is not achievable without the help and involvement of Pakistan, and to secure some stability in Pakistan we must address the Kashmir issue." I note that the Foreign Secretary did not mention India or Kashmir—probably rightly, as far as he is concerned. I wonder what the shadow Foreign Secretary, who has a freer remit, has to say about that. If he has nothing to say, I shall address the issue in my speech.

William Hague: The Foreign Secretary probably feels that he has said enough about Kashmir for the moment, and that we are all familiar with his views. Of course we all look forward to the day when India and Pakistan can together find a way forward on that issue. We know that they are often quite resistant to the idea that they can be told from outside what that way forward may be. So rather than expanding on the subject today and getting into difficulties similar to those experienced on the Government Front Bench recently, I will avoid the temptation and continue with the rather interesting points that I thought I was making.
	The United States is considering an increase in its military presence in Afghanistan. Indeed, it has announced some increase, which we assume to have been a subject of discussion with United Kingdom officials. In the light of that, may I ask the Minister who will wind up the debate what the Government's assessment is of the number of additional troops that will be arriving in Afghanistan in 2009? How many of those troops will be operating in Regional Command South, and more specifically in Helmand province, and—crucially for us—what will be the command relationship between US and UK forces operating in Helmand province as part of ISAF?
	If the Government are to propose that the level of British forces in Afghanistan should be increased—and there is much rumour of that at the moment—we hope that Ministers will have at the forefront of their minds the serious overstretch of our military resources in recent years, in both human and material terms, as well as the huge contribution that British forces have already made. Conservative Members have long argued for a more rapid increase in the number of helicopters available to support our forces. Some changes appear to have been made, but they have largely related to an increase in flying hours rather than in actual helicopters, with the result that the number of helicopters that was servicing 3,000 soldiers at the beginning then had to service 8,000. We welcome the fact that some of the Merlin helicopters from Iraq will eventually be transferred to Afghanistan, but there remains a serious time gap before this new capability arrives.
	I hope that when the Government present to Parliament the result of their review—or the Washington review, perhaps, or a joint review—they will ensure, especially if they are to propose an increase in our British troop levels, that that proposal is accompanied by a clear explanation of the military necessity and purpose of such a deployment. I also hope they will ensure that it is part of an overall strategy encompassing further improvements in the co-ordination of international aid—we have been drawing attention to that for some years, and the Foreign Secretary joined us today in that—and accompanied by a readiness by other NATO allies to increase their effort and, if necessary, to engage in actual fighting, and that it will give some indication as to how the better governance that is central to military success will eventually be achieved. It must be a civil, political and military strategy so that the people of Britain—and, indeed, normal, peace-loving people in Afghanistan—can have some confidence that it will succeed. I do not underestimate how formidably difficult it is to bring such a strategy together and execute it, but even for those of us outside the Government who do not possess all the necessary information and advice, it seems clear that a new strategy must, as a minimum, have all the attributes I have listed, and I hope Ministers will also feel able to say that it must have all those attributes.
	In addition, it is obvious to all that one of the key differences between defeating the insurgency in Iraq and the insurgents in Afghanistan is that in the latter case it is possible for them to take refuge on the territory of another country—in the tribal areas of Pakistan. That is one of several reasons why the future stability and success of Pakistan as a nation are fundamental to our security and that of the wider world.
	Members in all parts of the House pay close attention to the affairs of Pakistan. We have all expressed the hope that the return of democracy will be for the long term, so that the repetitive cycle of democratic experiment and military intervention that has plagued Pakistan for decades comes to an end. For Pakistan, and for the future of the entire region, this is now a time of great opportunity, but of equally great danger.
	It is a time of opportunity because a new, democratically elected Government have come to power, and by all appearances that Government have made a serious effort to improve relations with Afghanistan and understand the importance of combating terrorism. The scale of the attacks on Pakistan itself—most notably and tragically in recent times the bombing of the Marriott hotel in Islamabad—has underlined the fact the Pakistan has no choice as a state but to try to root out terror from its territory.
	The danger lies in the sheer scale of the challenge. The federally administered tribal area alone covers more than 27,000 sq km, is not covered by national legislation, and has an impoverished and isolated population. Worryingly, power in recent times seems to be shifting from the traditional assemblies of tribal elders—the jirgas—to militant or neo-Taliban groups. Danger also lies in the economic condition of Pakistan, which is currently facing depleted foreign exchange reserves and an International Monetary Fund loan package but with every prospect of a continuing financial crisis. There have also been serious concerns about the role of elements of Pakistan's own internal security services.
	Our response to this must be serious, large scale and determined. We must do everything we can to help to entrench democracy for the long-term future in Pakistan, to encourage its leaders in their struggle against terrorism and to give financial assistance.

Mike Gapes: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that co-operation between India and Pakistan in combating terrorism is also extremely important, and that it is a tragedy that the people who carried out the Mumbai attacks—who were also responsible for the bombings in Pakistan to which he referred—have been successful in that they have managed to create a situation in which the Indian and Pakistani Governments do not have good relations and are not co-operating?

William Hague: It would undoubtedly have been one of the objectives of those who carried out those terrorist attacks to make relations between India and Pakistan worse and to reduce the effectiveness of their security co-operation. That is why all of us in the House look to the leaders of India and Pakistan to work together on a range of issues and to co-operate closely on the security challenge that they face.

Tobias Ellwood: My right hon. Friend began by saying that we have to tease answers from this Government to understand what is going on. There is no clearer illustration of that than the answers that came back highlighting the fact that there are no Pakistani army representatives in Helmand province and no British Army representatives on the other side of the border, in Pakistan. Pakistan's army is now making an effort to deal with the insurgency, but because it cannot communicate on the other side of the border, things are going via Kabul. Is that not one example of the fact that there is not a lot of communication? So much more could be done if that situation were improved.

William Hague: I believe that Pakistan's armed forces have been making a considerably improved effort to deal with these matters in recent months. I have not looked at the particular point to which my hon. Friend refers but, undoubtedly, if that effort is to be effective, good communication across that border will be required. I shall certainly look at that point, and I hope that Ministers will do so too.
	I was discussing the scale of financial aid required for Pakistan. President Obama has spoken of tripling American aid to Pakistan, but he has also said, on the campaign trail:
	"As President I would make the hundreds of millions of US aid conditional, and I would make our conditions clear—Pakistan should make substantial progress in closing down the training camps, evicting foreign fighters, and preventing the Taliban from using Pakistan as a staging area for attacks in Afghanistan."
	That must be right.
	The Foreign Secretary has pointed out, as Ministers have often done, that the Department for International Development is doubling our assistance to Pakistan over the next three years—it is becoming DFID's second largest programme in the world. The Opposition support that emphasis on assistance to Pakistan. We are very concerned about what has been happening in the border areas. We receive a lot of letters and e-mails from visitors and those with family in these tribal areas, who are appalled by the increasing radicalisation of young people and by last year's destruction of 150 government schools, most of them for girls, in the North West Frontier province. We therefore hope that a great deal of that money will go to help in those areas, if that can be done in a secure way; otherwise we will find that a whole new generation of children have been raised under Taliban-style control.
	Given our domestic security situation, the presence of British troops in Helmand province and our long-term links with Pakistan, we hope that there will be close British input into the deliberations and mission of Ambassador Richard Holbrooke in his work as the special representative of the United States for Afghanistan and Pakistan. US Secretary of State Clinton has stressed that Ambassador Holbrooke
	"will co-ordinate across the entire government an effort to achieve United States' strategic goals in the region".
	A similarly joined-up approach must be pursued in this country.
	The problems that we are debating today are among the most intractable in the world. Some people would argue that they are nothing to do with us, although we know that in such an interdependent world, particularly with regard to our own security, we cannot walk away from them. Others would say that they are hopeless and unresolvable. In my view that is too pessimistic, but it is beyond doubt that we need an improvement in the situation in this region in the coming year. If all the factors of which I have spoken are addressed at the same time and with great energy by the leaders of Pakistan and Afghanistan, by our Government and that of the United States, the opportunity to get these things right will more or less be upon us in the coming months, and the importance of that is underlined by the likelihood that it will not easily recur.

Several hon. Members: rose —

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Before I call the next speaker, may I remind the House that there is an eight-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches and that applies from now on?

Gerald Kaufman: I join the Foreign Secretary in apologising for not being able to be present for the winding-up speeches; I long ago accepted an invitation from the Pakistani high commissioner to an event this evening relating to Kashmir.
	I also apologise to the House for the fact that I will not be speaking principally about Afghanistan. I recognise the huge achievements of our troops in Afghanistan, which are not mentioned enough. Women no longer come to my constituency fleeing from Afghanistan because of the persecution of women by the Taliban. The emancipation of women since British troops went to that country is one of the huge achievements of our intervention there and the sacrifices of our troops. Women are no longer stoned when they go on to the streets: they can now work and girls can go to school.
	I have a long association with Pakistan and have studied and followed its vicissitudes with great concern. I was most recently there to deliver the graduation address at the Institute of Science and Technology in Karachi, which is named after Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the Prime Minister of Pakistan who was murdered by the military regime, just as his daughter was murdered only just over a year ago. Those of us who care deeply about Pakistan have been heartbroken by the way in which the attempted entrenchment of democracy has been undermined by spells of military rule.
	There have been tragic vicissitudes in Pakistan over the 61 years of independence, but now it is once again a functioning democracy. That democracy was initiated when the founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, sat in the Gallery of the House of Commons listening to debates and learning that democracy was the best way for the country that he wanted to found. It is essential that our Government and the US Government in particular work to sustain the parliamentary democracy that has returned to Pakistan and is the legacy of my good friend, Benazir Bhutto.

John Horam: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that democracy is not only about voting, but about liberal values, such as human rights?

Gerald Kaufman: Of course I agree. Democracy is not just about voting for a Parliament, although that is very important. It is about the values to which the hon. Gentleman refers, and it is essential that they are sustained in Pakistan, which has among other things a very free press, as I have found when I have been interviewed by the press and television there.
	It is important that democracy in Pakistan be sustained for inherent reasons, but also because of Pakistan's key role in this troubled world. We must do all we can to make it a top priority to solve the world's oldest unresolved dispute—the 61-year-old dispute over Jammu and Kashmir. I have visited Jammu and Kashmir on many occasions—both the Pakistani side and Srinagar on the Indian side—and everywhere I have seen unnecessary suffering that could be eliminated if only rationality prevailed. Both Hindus and Muslims have suffered, and the situation is a tragedy for all the people who live in that beautiful but troubled province.
	We are all, I hope, friends of both India and Pakistan. In looking at the issue of Jammu and Kashmir, we do so from the point of view of the burdens and tragedies that it has imposed on both India and Pakistan. As I say, I have been on both sides of the line of control. I have visited a school destroyed by an Indian bombardment and I have visited the Indian military post that bombarded the school. Both sides believe that they are right, and that is the great tragedy in any such dispute. We have to do all we can—much more than we have been doing—to assist in the solution to the problem of Jammu and Kashmir. We have to put it high on the international agenda. After 61 years, it is essential that the voices of the people of Jammu and Kashmir are heard.

Denis MacShane: I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way, especially as time is short. He will recall that Robin Cook, when he was Foreign Secretary, raised the issue of Kashmir and was trashed to death as a result. He will have seen the way in which some of the British press attacked our right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary because he raised the issue of Kashmir, and how the shadow Foreign Secretary carefully skirted around it. How on earth can we get the matter on the international agenda if our Front Benchers are too timid to raise it?

Gerald Kaufman: It is a huge error to believe that the issue is marginal or peripheral in some way. Indeed, not paying serious attention to it is a prime strategic error in the context of what my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and the shadow Foreign Secretary have been talking about. First, as I say, it is essential that we act because the voice of the people of Jammu and Kashmir has not been heard for 61 years. If one goes to Muzaffarabad or Srinagar, one meets a disfranchised people. When I went to Srinagar, the Indian Government made a Government house available to me and invited people who had matters that they wanted to raise with me to come and see me. I sat there for seven hours while people told me of their woes and troubles. On a human level, the issue is extraordinarily important.
	I would have thought that it was folly not to take that all into account, because we have a confrontation between two nuclear-armed nations. We go on about the worries about nuclear weapons coming to Iran, and I do not disagree with that. We do not say so much about the fact that Israel is a country with nuclear weapons. However, in India and Pakistan we have two countries in perpetual military confrontation that both have nuclear weapons. In the United States Senate, that has been regarded as an extraordinarily serious matter. I hope that we will take into account the fact that war could break out between India and Pakistan at any time.
	This matter is also essential because of the disgusting waste of resources in both India and Pakistan spending so much money on armaments. India is said to have 500,000 troops in Jammu and its part of Kashmir. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary referred to the admirable fact that our Department for International Development has provided £480 million of aid for Pakistan. How much more money is Pakistan spending on its military confrontation? How much money is India spending on its military confrontation? We are told that there is a very good chance—

Mohammad Sarwar: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Gerald Kaufman: I have high a regard for my hon. Friend, but I have only one minute and 23 seconds left.
	We have seen the poverty shown in the film "Slumdog Millionaire". That poverty exists whether a movie is made about it or not, yet India is wasting unspeakably large resources on its confrontation with Pakistan. Some 100 million people in India are living below the Indian poverty line. A quarter of a million babies in Pakistan die every year because of filthy water supplies. It is essential that we do what we can to bring an end to this unnecessary and tragic confrontation. We have to make that a top priority not only for the sake of the people of Pakistan, India and the beautiful vale of Kashmir but for the sake of all the strategic reasons why we are in Afghanistan.

Jo Swinson: First, may I pass on the apologies of my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey)? Unfortunately, he has a prior engagement and is unable to be here for the debate.
	I am very pleased that we are having this debate in Government time on the Floor of the House and not as an Adjournment debate in Westminster Hall. Afghanistan and Pakistan are vital, both in the international context and for the UK. The Government are right to say that they need to be seen together and as part of the wider region.
	History has shown that Afghanistan in particular is fraught with difficulty, especially for any military endeavour. It is fair to say that the whole region has a huge potential for conflict if left unchecked and if we do not succeed in achieving the objectives that we have set out. It is therefore absolutely right that it is a priority for the UK's diplomatic efforts.
	The topic of Afghanistan and Pakistan is a very wide one, and this debate has provoked a lot of interest despite the short time available. I hope that the House will understand that it will be impossible for me to cover every aspect, but I hope to be able to speak about what I see as the key priorities for Afghanistan—support for our troops, tackling the drugs trade and development aid—and the situation in Pakistan.
	I agree very much with the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) that, although the debate is very welcome, three hours is not really sufficient. I understand that our time is restricted because of the other business before the House today, but we will need to return to these matters regularly as the situation develops. I hope that, as they have today, the Government will be generous in making time available for us to do so.
	The problem of Afghanistan requires a regional diplomatic solution that includes Pakistan and, importantly, Iran. The developments over the past couple of days with the British Council have been especially worrying, but we should try to see them as an opportunity to engage with Iran. It is not in that nation's interest to have a lawless void of a country on its doorstep, and the problems of the drugs trade and the impact that it is having on Iran have been mentioned already. It is essential that we bring Iran as well as Pakistan and the other neighbouring countries into the discussions. In the Balkans, peace was secured on a regional basis through the Dayton agreement, and we should look at adopting a similar approach in this case.
	I very much welcome the willingness that President Obama has shown since his election to engage diplomatically with the countries that are Afghanistan's neighbours. He has rejected the rhetoric of the war on terror, which undermined some of our diplomatic efforts by lumping everyone into being either with us or against us. It is easy to think of the Taliban as one entity, but that catch-all name covers a wide variety of people. Some of them are al-Qaeda sympathisers and very hard core, but others are more moderate, seeing the Taliban as a way to provide a degree of stability and security. We need to be able to engage and have discussions with them to see whether we can forge a way forward. That is something that our Government should definitely be doing.
	I echo the Foreign Secretary's welcome of Richard Holbrooke to his new role in Afghanistan. I very much enjoyed the letter that my noble Friend Lord Ashdown sent to him through the pages of  The Times earlier this week. In the paragraph that stood out for me, my noble Friend talked about the priorities for Afghanistan. He said:
	"We need a clear plan and some ruthless priorities. When I was going to Afghanistan in 2008 they told me we had 15 priorities. But if you have 15 priorities, you have none."
	He is quite right: we need to focus on a few priorities and fulfil them properly, rather than do 15 things badly. In his letter, Lord Ashdown outlines three priorities—human security, the rule of law, and governance—that I think have merit.
	In relation to human security, if the people of Afghanistan are continually threatened by violence as they go about their daily lives, and if they have no jobs or access to basic essentials such as electricity, water and health care, the ingredients for conflict are present and easily stoked up. However, if we can provide those basic necessities of human security, citizens will have a stake in peace and—crucially—a reason to support the Government.
	Perhaps it goes without saying that the rule of law is essential but, if we do not create faith in the Government and the rule of law, the prospects for peace look very dim. However, securing peace will involve tackling the corruption that has been rife in the Karzai Government. To put it mildly, the international community is losing some faith in that Government. New elections may be the solution to that problem.
	There is the issue of how the rule of law can be enforced, particularly in the short to medium term. Obviously, we want to move to a situation in which the police force is "Afghanised"—a term that has been used. More troops may be necessary, and Obama has talked about a surge and sending in new troops. It is certainly possible that the UK ought to be prepared to add to the troops there, although given the overstretch that we already face in the military services, the number of additional troops committed would have to be small. Perhaps we should redouble our efforts to encourage our EU partners, and other countries that recognise the vital importance of Afghanistan, to play their part more seriously, and provide the military support that is required if we are to meet our objectives. As I am sure the Foreign Secretary will appreciate, the issue is not just the number of troops; it is also the strategy. Continuing in the same vein as before is unlikely to yield results. Although I support additional troops, I very much hope that the Foreign Secretary will look, with our international partners, at a change of strategy in Afghanistan.
	The third priority is strengthening governance. It is easy for us, sitting in our traditional Parliament, to think that the style of democracy that evolved here is the only one that can work, and that we must impose it on other countries. The western style of governance may not be the right answer for Afghanistan. Indeed, there has been more than a century of foreign invasions in that country and attempts to overrule the tribal structures on which Afghanistan is based. History tells its own story; those adventures have not been successful. Trying to go against the grain of the country has not led to success. We really need to consider whether working with existing tribal structures and strengthening them democratically is a better way to approach the situation.
	Of course, the Foreign Secretary and shadow Foreign Secretary were right to pay tribute to all the members of the British armed services, and the civilians and aid workers, who are risking their lives in Afghanistan, as well as those from other countries around the world. When the House of Commons takes the difficult decision to engage in a conflict such as that in Afghanistan, we have a real responsibility to give the young men and women whom we send to that country the support that they need. The military covenant, which has worked well for many decades, is coming under increased stress because of the lack of support that many serving members of our armed forces have felt in recent years due to overstretch.
	As has been mentioned, 143 British personnel have been killed in Afghanistan in the past eight years, and nearly 100 more have been seriously injured or wounded. In our constituency surgeries, people who served in Afghanistan tell us stories about the lack of equipment. It has certainly touched my heart to hear of the fears surrounding the use of armoured vehicles, particularly Snatch Land Rovers, which have caused the death of seven of our personnel. It is welcome that the Government have finally announced that there will be 600 new armoured vehicles going to Afghanistan. However, they took too long to come to that decision. It was evident a very long time ago that the Snatch Land Rovers were not adequate and sufficient equipment for our troops serving there.
	I hope that the announcement will be properly backed up, and that the 600 vehicles will arrive on time. Back in 2007, 96 new armoured vehicles were promised, but according to  The Daily Telegraph, only 16 were delivered on time. I hope that we have learned lessons from that experience, and that we can make sure that the new armoured vehicles get to the brave soldiers who need them. The shadow Foreign Secretary mentioned helicopters, which, in a country such as Afghanistan, are vital, as it is very difficult for any foreign army to deal with the terrain. Of course, the enemies there know the terrain and their homeland much better than we do, so helicopters, allowing the swift movement of troops, are absolutely vital.
	The other point to make about honouring the military covenant is that we should ensure that the troops we send to war zones have adequate time in between tours to recover, to spend with their families, and to have the semblance of a normal life. That has not been happening to the extent that it should, because of the overstretch. That should be borne in mind when the troops come home from Iraq later this year. They cannot immediately be sent to Afghanistan. We need to take into account their health and psychiatric care needs. That is why a large increase in troop numbers from this country will not be possible.
	With regard to opium and poppy cultivation in Afghanistan, clearly the building of a legal economy with secure incomes for citizens is essential. The economy that has developed over the past couple of hundred years has thrived on the trade in weapons and narcotics. As a result, the incomes of many people have relied on the instability in the region, which totally undermines what we are trying to achieve. I read recently that the opiate industry in Afghanistan produces exports equal in value to half of the rest of the Afghan economy, so there is obviously a huge challenge.
	Various responses to that challenge have been suggested. The US has often favoured spraying the poppy fields, but that could undermine our efforts to build relationships with individuals and would not be helpful in diplomatic terms. Others, including some hon. Members, have suggested that we should buy up the entire poppy crop and use it for the legal trade in morphine, but again, that would not necessarily do us any favours in building relationships.
	The strategy that seems to have had some success is supporting initiatives to move from the poppy crop to, for example, wheat and other agricultural products. As was mentioned, the resulting number of poppy-free provinces increased from 13 in 2007 to 18 in 2008, and particularly in the north-east of the country the scheme has had some success. It is vital that that continues, because the narcotics trade is fuelling corruption, which undermines the rule of law and governance.
	On the international development support that we give, there has been some positive progress on some indicators since the fall of the Taliban. Figures for infant mortality show that 40,000 fewer babies die each year. The number of functioning health clinics is up by 60 per cent. So there is some good news, but there are huge problems from an international development perspective, with up to 5 million people facing food shortages and 1.8 million at high risk of malnutrition. Those circumstances continue to undermine the security situation.
	The issue that I particularly want to raise with the Government is the distribution of aid, because there is still a tendency in Afghanistan for development aid to reflect donor priorities, rather than Afghan priorities—a tendency to look at Afghanistan from a country perspective, rather than at the totality. Often, when we talk about Afghanistan, we naturally think about Helmand and about our troops who are there, but a more strategic overview is needed. I hope DFID can contribute to that. Oxfam has suggested that the uneven spread of aid is contributing to insecurity, so I hope the Government will take up the issue and ensure that the aid programmes to which all the various international partners contribute are properly co-ordinated to reflect the national priorities, not just the regional priorities, in Afghanistan.
	Returning to the security situation, the effort to provide aid in Afghanistan has been hampered by the increase in deliberate attacks on aid workers. There were 30 such deaths last year which, as I am sure the House would agree, is a very worrying development. It takes us back to the initial priorities of securing people's ability to go about their daily lives and ensuring that the rule of law is respected.
	I turn now to Pakistan. It is just over a year since we were having debates in the House following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto so shockingly on 27 December 2007. There was a cautious optimism in the House at the time that the elections would go ahead and proceed peacefully. At the same time there was an acceptance that the situation was fragile and could go horribly wrong. As we look back one year on, it is welcome that elections took place fairly peacefully and that there is a coalition Government and a return to democracy between the Pakistan People's party and the Pakistan Muslim League. Obviously, that is welcome progress, although we are not quite there yet as there are still major challenges, particularly in the Pakistani Government's relationships with the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence and the military, and in respect of where the true power and control within the country lie.
	It is vital that we involve the Pakistani Government in any of our diplomatic efforts to secure peace in Afghanistan, particularly when it comes to the border regions and the federally administered tribal areas. I had read about the problems in that region, but I was still momentarily stunned by the statistic read out by the Foreign Secretary: female literacy in the region is just 3 per cent. When we discuss international affairs, intense poverty and great problems, we sometimes get away from the human and the individual. However, such a statistic makes us start to appreciate how dire the situation is and how much progress needs to be made. There is a whole range of different indicators. We can see the link between the education of women and the economic development and progress of countries; that literacy situation means that the economic future of the region is also under great threat.
	The intention of the Obama Administration to address the threat of the FATA welcome. Securing a border agreement and bringing the region under the legitimate rule of central Government is of utmost importance to international security. It is right that we should work with the Pakistani Government to achieve those goals. None of that will be easy; the challenge for us and our international partners is incredibly difficult.
	India has been mentioned. There is little time to go into the issue in great detail, but the relationship between Pakistan and India has clearly been hugely shaken by the Mumbai bombing; that, of course, was the very objective of those attacks. Understandably, there have been very strong words from the Indian Government, but so far there has been no form of retaliation. I think that that is a positive sign that the two Governments recognise the importance of getting their relationship back on track.

Mohammad Sarwar: Does the hon. Lady accept that the Mumbai attacks against innocent people have damaged the relationship between India and Pakistan? Both countries are victims of terrorism and we must urge them to work together with the international community to defeat terrorism. Pakistan must do its best, using evidence, to bring to justice the perpetrators who are taking refuge in the country. On the other hand, India must accept Pakistan's offer of a joint investigation to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Jo Swinson: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He is right, and the international community should do anything that it can to support the efforts of India and Pakistan to work through the difficulties caused by the attacks. Proper investigation is certainly part of that, and bringing to justice the people responsible would be incredibly helpful.
	There was a statement today on the case of Binyam Mohamed, and there is no point in my going over that debate. However, I should say that our action in Afghanistan is to uphold human rights and the universal values that the terrorists seek to undermine. Stooping to practices such as torture would fatally undermine our own case. I welcome the Government's statement that we never condone torture or allow the practice of it; clearly, there can be no justification for torture under any circumstances. If there is evidence that Binyam Mohamed was not tortured, we need to see it. If there is evidence to the contrary, we equally need to see that, so that those who knew about it and were responsible can be held to account under international law.
	In conclusion, I welcome the regional context that the Foreign Secretary set out. Afghanistan and Pakistan must be seen together in a regional frame. Although we have made some limited progress in Afghanistan, there is clearly still a massive task ahead of us. Business as usual will not provide us with the right way forward. We need new and clearly articulated priorities. We have to hope that there is a cause for optimism with the current international good will towards new US President Obama. Perhaps that gives us a little window of opportunity in many foreign affairs issues which should be exploited to the maximum.
	As the House will know, my party has not been universally supportive of UK intervention abroad, but in the case of Afghanistan there was consensus not only in the UK but, amazingly, in the international community. The success that we seek to achieve in Afghanistan and in the wider region, including Pakistan, is absolutely vital, not only for the international community but for UK interests, whether in terms of safety and security, counter-terrorism or counter-narcotics. That is why the region must remain a top priority on the Government's agenda.

Mohammad Sarwar: I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in a debate on a matter that is so close to my heart and to which, owing to my origins, I am so deeply connected. I should like to begin by highlighting the strong mutual relations that exist between the United Kingdom and Pakistan arising from their long-standing historical association with one another. I was fortunate that in my youth, when I was growing up and studying at university, Pakistan was a modern, liberal state run according to modern democratic and Islamic ideals in which traditional Islamic values were reconciled with modern, liberal ideas.
	However, there was a dramatic change shortly after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The United States Government viewed the conflict as an integral part of their cold war struggle against the Soviets and so saw it as being in their interests to provide assistance to any Afghan-led resistance movement regardless of its fundamentalist and extremist elements. Such support, although successful in achieving the immediate goal of a Soviet defeat, afterwards served only to strengthen the extremists' hold over Afghanistan and Pakistan. As soon as the Soviets were defeated in Afghanistan, the Americans abandoned the people of Afghanistan, leaving the different factions to fight among themselves. No assistance was given with the rebuilding of homes, schools and infrastructure that could have helped the people of Afghanistan to recover and to create a stable and secure democratic nation, capable of countering extremism.
	Similarly, after the tragic events that took place on 9/11, which triggered the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, no prior plan was ever conceived to deal with the aftermath. The US-led force devastated what was left of a very poor country that had already been ravaged by war, and yet made no real efforts to invest in it and help it to recover. The people of Afghanistan never saw any visible benefits of change after the defeat of the Taliban. Instead, they have been let down once again by the west, which, halfway through the invasion, shifted its attention towards the invasion of Iraq. That is a mistake which the United States has made before, and we must not allow it to happen again. I therefore thank my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister for having made Afghanistan one of the UK's top foreign policy priorities. I also commend the Government for the substantial development and stabilisation aid that is to be delivered to Afghanistan over the next few years.
	Earlier this year, I led a delegation of hon. Members from the United Kingdom, including my hon. Friends the Members for Livingston (Mr. Devine), for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mark Fisher) and for Dundee, West (Mr. McGovern), on a visit to Pakistan, at a time when there were rising tensions between it and India because of the deplorable and vicious attacks, which we must all condemn, on the innocent people of Mumbai. We were all very grateful to His Excellency Mr. Javed Malik, Pakistan's ambassador at large, who made all the necessary arrangements for our visit. We were very privileged to meet the President of Pakistan, Mr. Asif Ali Zardari, the Prime Minister, Mr. Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani, and Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, former Prime Minister and current chairman of the Pakistan Muslim League (N), who during his time as Prime Minister helped to foster better relations between India and Pakistan. He was particularly grateful for the hospitality extended to him by the British Government during his time spent in exile.
	We were all honoured to have had the opportunity to meet her excellency, Dr. Fahmida Mirza, Speaker of the National Assembly of Pakistan, and the first Muslim woman Speaker in the entire Muslim world. My colleagues and I were tremendously impressed by her passion and commitment to the fragile democracy of Pakistan. Those we met were eager to see Pakistan flourish as a democratic Muslim nation, and emphasised their commitment to ridding the country of the scourge of terror. They also expressed their gratitude for the substantial aid and investment package the United Kingdom Government have offered them to help to redevelop the education system and health care, and to counter the influence of militancy.
	We also had the privilege of meeting the Leader of the Opposition, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan. He was extremely grateful to the British Government, particularly the British high commission in Islamabad, for their support when he and others were subjected to political victimisation. That made me and all the members of the delegation feel immensely proud. However, all the people that we met were extremely concerned and angry at the continued use of drone attacks by the United States, which they felt were not only counter-productive to their attempts to tackle terrorism, but were actually harnessing extra support for extremist groups. Such attacks are a violation of the sovereignty of Pakistan and we must urge the United States to bring an immediate halt to their use.
	We need to understand and appreciate that Pakistan is also the victim of terror, and that it is going through difficult and challenging times, especially bearing in mind the recent assassination of the former Pakistani Prime Minister, Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto—the terrible loss of a great leader. It is estimated that Pakistan has so far lost more than 1,000 soldiers in fighting militants on the border with Afghanistan. At the same time, both countries have been subject to numerous suicide bombings—in the last year alone, more than 2,000 civilians in Pakistan have lost their lives to such bombings.
	In conclusion, I must emphasise the importance of a resolution of the Kashmiri conflict in favour of the people of Kashmir. It is perhaps one of the most important issues in this debate, and an area on which both Pakistan and India need our help. It is also an essential part of the road map to a stabilised Afghanistan. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary was absolutely right when he said that
	"Resolution of the dispute over Kashmir would help deny extremists in the region one of their main calls to arms".

Virendra Sharma: On the dispute between India and Pakistan, is it not important that the British Government should play a major part in bringing those countries to the table to negotiate on all their disputes, including the recent bombing in Mumbai and in other parts of the country?

Mohammad Sarwar: My hon. Friend makes an important point. When tensions were high between India and Pakistan in 2002, I remember the British Government and the international community played a major role in easing those tensions and, indeed, brought those countries to the negotiating table to discuss the issues between them.
	A political settlement on Kashmir is vital to the future peace and security of the region. Therefore, we must help the Governments of Pakistan and India to work together to reach a resolution as soon as possible. I hope that through the newly elected Administration of President Obama in the United States, combined with the leadership of our Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister, we will learn from our mistakes, continue to build stronger diplomatic relations and work together with the Governments of the region to build a stable and prosperous south Asia that can help to bring peace and stability to the world.

Peter Tapsell: Any student of Afghanistan—the word "Taliban" translates into Pashto as "student of Islam"—will know that there are two permanently dominating factors. One is size, and the other is psychology. When the British Raj was seeking what in those days was called a "forward policy" on the North West Frontier, now called the tribal districts, the great Lord Salisbury, when he was Foreign Secretary to Disraeli, used to send messages to the viceroy urging him to study a larger-scale map. Of course, the viceroy's failure to do that led to the second Afghan war, which contributed to the fall of the Disraeli Government.
	The size of Afghanistan is critical. It is an enormous country of breathtaking beauty—not really a country at all but a huge geographical area occupied by about 40 tribes, many of them of different ethnic backgrounds. They have only two characteristics in common. One is that they hate each other, and the other is that they hate foreigners even more. When they cannot kill each other, they turn to killing foreigners—or vice versa, actually.
	The idea that is now spreading that we are going to win people's hearts and minds is realistically unattainable. The Russians and the British tried to win their hearts and minds by every conceivable method for 200 years. We had an immense number of devoted Old Rugbeians who spoke all the local languages and could pass unnoticed in any bazaar as devoutly Islamic. They knew all about Afghanistan being the home of the cloak of the Prophet. But nobody has ever won the hearts of people in Afghanistan, and nobody is ever going to, because they hate foreigners. It is precisely the intervention of foreigners that is making the problem so bad. The more troops we send there, the worse the situation will get.
	As I said right from the beginning, our action does not just destabilise Afghanistan, it equally destabilises Pakistan. People are beginning to see that in reality. It is not just about hotels being blown up in Islamabad. Only a fortnight ago there was tremendous trouble with the Taliban in Swat, which is an enormously long way away from the frontiers and has a totally different ethnic background. The fact is that the situation in Pakistan is getting ever more serious.
	I have some knowledge of Pakistan, having travelled about it. I am sorry that my colleague from Oxford days, the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman), is no longer in his place. He and I were both friends of Benazir Bhutto. My wife and I took Benazir and her fiancé out to the theatre and to dinner three days after her mother had chosen her husband-to-be, whom she had never met before. They were very happy together. The next time that I met him was after he had come out from many years in prison under General Musharraf, and I took them both out to lunch. Benazir Bhutto's mother was the widow of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was murdered by General Zia, and Benazir's widower is now President of Pakistan. That indicates the extreme fluidity of Pakistani politics.
	One must bear in mind the absolute lack of stability in these countries. What makes it much more serious is that Pakistan is a nuclear power with rockets that, with nuclear warheads, could destroy New Delhi and the area around it. Nobody actually knows who controls that nuclear power—maybe our Ministers do, but I very much doubt it. Even in Pakistan, none of the Ministers to whom I spoke, including Benazir, whom I knew well from her schoolgirl days onwards, knew who controlled the weapons.
	We are playing a terribly dangerous game—the word "game" always seems to crop up in connection with the area. We should get out of Afghanistan altogether. It no longer has strategic value. It is not the Russian gateway to India or the crossroads for trade between east and west and north and south. No Afghan was involved in the 9/11 attacks. The Taliban have no international ambitions. Taliban leaders do not like the al-Qaeda Saudi leaders.

Roberta Blackman-Woods: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that many Afghan politicians who visit this country and meet hon. Members, including those in the all-party group, stress the opposite to what he suggests? They want us to be in Afghanistan and they want us to stay there for the long term to help them develop and establish a prosperous and democratic country.

Peter Tapsell: The warlords, who run the place, are quite undemocratic. In the eight minutes available, I cannot make a proper speech on the matter—or any other subject.
	However, I will read out four answers that the new Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, gave when she appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee the other day for her confirmation hearings, with Senator John Kerry putting pointed, detailed questions. Here are only four of her answers, which are not in consecutive order. First, she said:
	"The security situation in Afghanistan in deteriorating and the Taliban is gaining ground."
	Secondly, she said:
	"Afghanistan needs a government more able to take care of its people's needs".
	Thirdly, she said:
	"Afghanistan has turned into a narcostate."
	Fourthly, she said:
	"The Afghan government is plagued by limited capacity and widespread corruption."
	Now even the planned election has had to be postponed. President Karzai has no popular support. His relations are leading members of the narcotics corruption gangs.

Roberta Blackman-Woods: rose—

Peter Tapsell: I cannot give way again. I have only one minute—I am sorry.
	We should support Mr. Holbrooke, whom I know because we served on the Trilateral Commission for many years together. He is the ideal man for the job. He is as tough as any Afghan and very clever. We now have a new President of the United States, in whom I have tremendous confidence and for whom I have the greatest admiration, and I hope that he will apply his brilliant mind to the problem and get us out of Afghanistan altogether, before Pakistan becomes an enormous threat to the stability and safety of the world.

Paul Flynn: It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Sir Peter Tapsell), who has been the voice of history and the voice of sanity on the subject of our debate for many years.
	There were many omissions from the Foreign Secretary's speech. He inadvertently gave a wholly misleading impression when he suggested, in answer to an intervention, that we have only two choices: to carry on what we are doing or to cut and run. Those are not the only choices—there are many others. As has been suggested, it is possible to do deals. Subtle and complex deals, which are not straight deals with those who are pro-Karzai or pro-west, have been done successfully. That is the way forward. If we do not do deals, we might end up with something like the retreat from Vietnam by the Americans or the retreat from Kabul by the Russians. There is a way we can defend and consolidate some of the gains. Those gains are greatly exaggerated, but there have been some in education and in the position of women in Afghanistan. Unless we do a deal, we might lose them all.
	The Foreign Secretary did not mention the surge, which is very much on our minds. Let us go back to what happened in this country. There was universal support, including from me, when we went into Afghanistan, although I did not think that the aims were attainable, particularly the ones to do with drugs. There is no consolation there, in spite of what the Foreign Secretary said. In the past three years we have seen the three largest drug crops ever and the price of heroin on the streets of Britain and France is lower than it ever was. There has been no success there.
	We are talking about a country that is hugely divided, as the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle said. I have a constituent who describes himself as the King of Baluchistan. Baluchistan is never talked about, but when Karzai sent in 12 emissaries to bring the Baluchs under control, their reaction was to behead them. Afghanistan is a huge, complex country that has been divided for millennia by tribal jealousies, as the hon. Gentleman described.
	Let us look at the idea of putting in the military. Nobody says there is a military solution on its own, but there is nothing else to go with it. We can talk about construction, but although there was great celebration when a turbine was taken to a power station site, it took 3,000 soldiers to guard its passage there over many weeks. We know that the Taliban's first roadblock is 15 miles outside Kabul, and Kandahar is under their control, apart from a few square miles of compounds controlled by NATO.
	I believe that we are mistaking the view of the Afghan people. They were fed up with the Taliban and certainly welcomed us when we went in in 2001. However, the mood now is very different. What we are offering is eternal war—an American in the Pentagon told me that we would be there for generations. If that is the prospect for the Afghan people—either they bring the Taliban back or the Taliban take control, or there is a war in which Afghanistan loses 2,000 civilians a year as a result of bombing—they could move to the view that life might be more tolerable under the Taliban, so we are in a very weak position.
	The great worry that we all have is about the extension of the war to Pakistan. Indeed, America is bombing sites in Pakistan now. The battle to win hearts and minds has gone terribly wrong. We should think back to the debate that we had in Westminster Hall in March 2006 and what all the parties to it said. There were interesting contributions from Opposition Members in that debate. As I said in an earlier intervention, at that time only seven British soldiers had died, mostly as a result of accidents.
	The Government were warned that going in to Helmand province was like stirring up a hornets' nest, because we were the Ferengi—the foreigners—against whom there would be jihad again. The view of many Afghans is that their sublime motive in life is to die in jihad, as their fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers did. We are sending troops in as targets for people who are looking for their pathway to paradise. When we began our intervention, the hope was—this was said at the time and it cannot be unsaid—that we could go into Helmand province and stay there for three years without a shot being fired. We know now that 4 million shots have been fired, and we will be there possibly for 30-plus years if we continue with this foolishness.
	I urge the Government to look again at what is happening. I urge them to take the intelligence of the new US President and General Petraeus, who are clearly subtle thinkers—we are not dealing with George Bush now—so that we can follow in the slipstream of Obama and his policies and look to a solution that is based on negotiation and doing deals. We cannot get rid of corruption. Corruption has been the lubricant of business and politics in Afghanistan for centuries and it will remain so. At the moment the corruption runs all the way up to the family of the President. There are a significant number of new millionaires in Afghanistan as a result of our presence and our spending there.
	We have already spent far too much in Afghanistan, in blood and in treasure. We must look to the future. We cannot send our young men and women over there to die in vain in a war with impossible aims that cannot be achieved.
	The message that should come from the Chamber today is that there should certainly be no surge. There should be no increase in the number of British troops there; it is madness to believe that that would make any difference. Russia had 100,000 troops there, and there were 150,000 Afghans under arms. The Russians lost 6,500 of their own troops. They were there for 10 years and spent billions of roubles, but they ran away when 300,000 mujaheddin surrounded Kabul. We must ensure that we do not get ourselves into that position.

Roberta Blackman-Woods: Does my hon. Friend accept that the best way of ensuring that the lives of British and other soldiers will not be lost in Afghanistan is to work with the people who want to build a properly functioning state with a properly functioning police force and army, rather than simply to give up, walk out and leave the people of Afghanistan to deal with their enormous difficulties on their own?

Paul Flynn: The Foreign Secretary mentioned the police force, although I do not know whether it was in his original speech. He talked about a police force that was worth the name. The police force in Afghanistan is corrupt. Its officers are unpaid, and their only source of income is to put up roadblocks and collect tolls from the people going through. The situation is far worse now. I have been to some of the presentations given by my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Dr. Blackman-Woods) when groups come over here. Of course, there are certain groups and individuals in Afghanistan who have done very well. They look forward to our staying there for a long time, because it is good for them. They have power that they never had before, and they are far more prosperous than they ever were. It is ironic to think that, for every British life lost in Afghanistan, there is almost certainly one additional millionaire in Kabul. That is not the way forward, and we must recognise the seriousness of the position and the hopelessness of the case. We are constantly in denial if we believe that there is a way forward and a solution waiting round the bend.
	The right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) fairly set out four aims, and said that none of them was attainable. He said that we were not going forward on any of them. Sadly, however, at the end of his speech, he bottled out and came up with an optimistic ending. I urge Opposition Members—many of whom have spent time in Afghanistan, including serving in the Army, and are very well informed—to make their voices heard to ensure that we do not go ahead with a disastrous military surge that would be answered with a vast surge by the Taliban. The bloodshed among our soldiers and among the civilians would only multiply.

Malcolm Rifkind: Listening to the thoughtful speech by the hon. Member for Newport, West (Paul Flynn) and the splendid speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Sir Peter Tapsell), I could not help but reflect on my own first ministerial visit to the region in 1982, when I was an Under-Secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. At that time, the Soviets were in occupation in Afghanistan. While in Peshawar, I visited an Afghan refugee camp. When the Afghan refugees heard that a British Minister was present, I was required to make a speech. I spoke to 10,000 Afghan refugees, with their rifles and bandoliers, and I said the kind of things that one would expect me to say. I said that we looked forward to their achieving their freedom, and to the day when the Soviet Union would return to its own country.
	The speech was translated into Pashto, but what I did not realise was that it was then translated back into English for the English-language  Peshawar Times that appeared the following day. When I read it, I saw remarks attributed to me that I did not exactly recall having said. It said that the visiting British Foreign Office Minister had called upon the Afghans to continue the jihad against the Soviet infidel. I was not so worried about what the  Peshawar Times had said; my concern was that Mrs. Thatcher, back home, might get a report of it. On further reflection, however, I thought that if she did, she might think that the Foreign Office was not quite so wet as she had previously assumed.

Denis MacShane: Surely that standard of reporting is far higher than politicians in this country get when we are reported in the  Daily Mail, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, and so on.

Malcolm Rifkind: I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will be reported in the  Peshawar Times tomorrow morning; I only hope his remarks will be reported more accurately than mine were.

Mohammad Sarwar: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

Malcolm Rifkind: Perhaps I could continue my remarks for the moment.
	Of course, the British and western presence in Afghanistan is of a quite different order to the Soviet occupation, and it is important to remind ourselves why we went there. We did not go there to eradicate the poppy trade, to introduce democracy or to give women greater rights—entirely desirable though they be. They were no more the reasons why we went into Afghanistan than why we ever sent our troops into many other countries around the world. We went there because the Taliban Government had given sanctuary to al-Qaeda and had every intention at that time of continuing to do so.
	This is crucial. Despite what the Foreign Secretary tried to suggest, the reality is that in the earlier years of the western presence in Afghanistan, as seen in all the speeches made by Ministers, both American and British, we appeared to be giving equal weight to nation building along with the eradication of the Taliban and the political control of the territory of Afghanistan. That was always a very foolish set of assumptions because nation building, although highly desirable, is a matter that will take at the very least a generation to achieve and it will certainly depend on cultural and social factors as it simply cannot be implemented by military means.
	The risk that we followed by taking that approach was, until relatively recently, twofold. First, of course, it could not be achieved, so the consequence was failure. Secondly, we risked—as we still do—losing public support in this country and other NATO countries because we did not seem to be delivering the democracy, the freedom from corruption and the end of the poppy trade, which we claimed were our objectives. I noted that Robert Gates, the American Defence Secretary, said three weeks ago that
	"the goals we did have for Afghanistan are too broad and too far into the future."
	He acknowledged that America had changed its position, and I just wish that the Foreign Secretary and the than their Government would make a similar acknowledgement rather implying that they had said this all along, when that was not and has not been their position until relatively recently.
	If we are to see the continuing elimination of Afghanistan as a base for terrorist activity, we should first realise that we have already achieved that objective. For the year since NATO arrived in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda has not been able to use that territory as a base for its vicious terrorist activities; and our objective should be entirely concentrated on how we ensure that that continues to be the case in the future.

Mohammad Sarwar: Since the time when the right hon. and learned Gentleman was in power and the mujaheddin were fighting against the Russians, who was it who found, funded and armed Osama bin Laden?

Malcolm Rifkind: I understand the hon. Gentleman's point, but it is not as good as he thinks it is. The fact remains that while the Soviet Union was in effective occupation of Afghanistan, the international community of course used whatever means were available to eliminate the Soviet presence from the country—and it succeeded. The fact that some of the individuals in the mujaheddin—some, not all—went on to become international terrorists is not a matter for which either the United States or anyone other than the individuals concerned can be blamed. I think that the hon. Gentleman would recognise that fact.
	The objective is, as I have indicated, to maintain, not to achieve, a position whereby al-Qaeda is no longer able to operate from within Afghanistan. We know that the single greatest problem at the moment is that both al-Qaeda and the Taliban can take sanctuary in the frontier area—in the hills and caves on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The question is therefore how we can improve that situation and assess why it is proving so difficult. It is not a new problem.
	I mentioned being in the country in 1982 and I remember going to the Pakistan part of the Khyber pass at that time. As I entered the area, there was a sign on the road which effectively said that the Pakistani Government would not accept responsibility for anything that happened more than 100 m off either side of the main road. There has been a long period of uncertainty and lack of effective control, but what has made it worse is that deep Pakistani neurosis that both India and Afghanistan are seeking the ultimate dismemberment of their country. That may be a grossly unfair accusation—it probably is a grossly unfair accusation—but Pakistan is, of course, an artificial state. I hope I will not be misunderstood in saying it, but it was a state created for a specific purpose at a specific time.
	We know that, as has already been mentioned, Afghanistan has never, since 1948, recognised the Durand line as the legitimate international frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Of course that gives rise to elements within the Inter-Services Intelligence, within the armed forces in Pakistan and possibly within the Government who say, "Actually, we would rather have the Taliban than anyone else, because however evil the Taliban may be, they are not particularly nationalist in their ideology." Nationalism is not what interests the Taliban; what interests them is Islam, of a particular mediaeval kind. From the Pakistani point of view, while all Afghan Governments have not been particularly useful to them, the Taliban were more acceptable—in the past, when they were in charge—because they did not seem terribly interested in frontier issues.
	Against that background, we—as NATO, and as the international community—are entitled to say to President Karzai, "Look, if you want us to continue helping you, you must do what is in your power to help the situation." What is within the power of the Afghan Government is the resolution of the frontier problem between the two countries. If Karzai is not willing to do that, he must recognise that he cannot expect the kind of support that he would be entitled to expect otherwise.
	Those are important issues, but let me comment on two other matters. Of course it is the case that, in many respects, President Karzai has proved to be a serious disappointment. He is thought to be corrupt, inadequate and unable to govern in an effective fashion. We constantly hear the question, "Should the international community dump Karzai because of his inadequacies?" We need only question give that a moment's thought, however, to realise what a grossly improper suggestion it is. One of the arguments employed by the west—the international community—is that Karzai is the first elected President in Afghanistan's history. How can we possibly be seen to be involved in seeking to remove him? That must remain a matter entirely for the Afghan people. They will decide in their own way—and let us hope that they have the means to express it in a proper way—that they will have either Karzai or some alternative President, if that is their wish.
	Finally, I want to say something about the role of the Taliban. I said earlier that our objective in Afghanistan was not primarily to bring about democracy, the end of corruption or human rights, desirable though that is. Again, I do not wish to be misunderstood, but at the end of the day we do not mind who runs Afghanistan, including the Taliban, as long as they do not give support to al-Qaeda—as long as they do not provide a sanctuary for that or any similar terrorist organisation. I detest the Taliban as much as anyone because of what they believe in. I detest many organisations and peoples around the world with unacceptable views, but that is not a matter that need result in a military intervention in the country concerned.
	Whether we deal with the Taliban depends on whether the Taliban as a whole, which is unlikely, or substantial elements within the Taliban, which is much more probable, either are prepared or may become prepared to negotiate with the Afghan Government either on a coalition or on something of that kind. Let me respond to what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle by saying that the relevance of our military presence is that if we want to ensure, as I am sure my hon. Friend does, that al-Qaeda or other terrorists cannot use Afghanistan, it is highly desirable for us to involve at least a proportion of the Taliban in the political process if they are willing to co-operate in that objective. I do not consider it to be an unrealistic objective.
	The reason why I shall be perfectly happy if we have more NATO troops in Afghanistan is that it will help to convince the Taliban that while we may not be able to achieve a complete military victory, nor can they. A political solution will therefore become increasingly attractive to a substantial proportion of the Taliban, and may then enable a political solution to be achieved which will help us to deliver our fundamental requirement: no terrorism ever again emanating from Afghanistan.

Denis MacShane: It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), described in Lord Howe's memoirs as a brilliant speaker without notes. We saw again today just how right that description was. It is also a pleasure to follow my fellow Mertonian, the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Sir Peter Tapsell). I do not quite know why Merton college produces so many people with an interest in geopolitics, but there it is.
	I will start by mentioning a date: on 25 June 2003, the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, for the first time came to the Dispatch Box to pay tribute to a soldier who had fallen in the campaign in Afghanistan. Now, the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition have to go through that ritual every Wednesday. We understand that, but I wonder whether our fellow citizens and we as Members of Parliament will at some point say, "That's enough." I hope that the good people of Rotherham will continue to send me here to spend more years in Parliament, and I would like many a Wednesday to go by without such condolences having to be paid.
	I make that point as a supporter of the decision of the Euro-Atlantic community and NATO to be present in Afghanistan. I do not get any sense that there is a strategy, however. There are tactical interventions and comments here and there. I heard Secretary Gates refer to the impossibility of making Afghanistan a Valhalla. I hope he was accurate in that because, of course, Valhalla is where dead heroes go to their final eternal rest—I am unsure to what extent some senior American politicians are educated in the classics nowadays.
	I propose a non-aggression pact to the Front-Bench teams of all three main parties. Is it possible to have a fabulous discussion of "Hamlet" without mentioning the prince, or of "The Jungle Book" without referring to the elephants or tigers? If India is not mentioned in the context of how to solve this broad regional problem, we will never have a strategy, but merely tactical interventions.
	It is easy to send our troops into foreign fields, but it is much more difficult to get them out. I remember hearing a Defence Secretary say, "Oh, the soldiers are only going to Afghanistan. They won't do any shooting. They'll only be there for a short time." Then, not so long ago, I think it was one of the senior generals who said, "They could be there for 30 years." I want to know this: what is our strategy? Does NATO have a strategy? Does the United States have a strategy? I do not seriously expect a full answer to this question tonight, but it must be posed.
	With the arrival of a new President in America, we have an opportunity to set Afghanistan in a wider context. Afghanistan was the base where the planning and organisation was done for the killing of people in America, and it is part of the broader base—linked with Pakistan, I accept—whence the people came who killed the Londoners on 7 July 2005. That planning, recruitment, training and killing continues: even today, five people have been blown up at a hospital in Pakistan. I do not have the details, but I do not think that can be divorced from the fact that we face an ideological onslaught on our values.
	There is a clearly expressed ideology of militant Islamist fundamentalism that not only wants to kill, but rejects all the values that uphold democracy—the rule of law, open economies, freedom of expression—as well as the rights of those of other religions and women and gays to live their lives as they wish. It is not just western countries who suffer from this ideological assault. Al-Qaeda's number two, Mr. al-Zawahiri, has stated that the Pakistani Government are "apostate" and should be overthrown. It is time that we drew a much clearer distinction between Islamism as an ideology and the faith of Islam.
	We must also recognise that there are great forces around the world with a strategic interest in seeing NATO, the United States, Great Britain, the west and the Euro-Atlantic community defeated. There is an open-ended supply of arms from Iran and other parts of the region to the people who are seeking to kill our soldiers. We can send as many helicopters there as we like, but as the Russians will tell us, helicopters do not do the trick. We can bomb as much as much as we like, too—in 2007, the US air force had almost 3,000 strike hits—but that has not decreased the violence.
	Kyrgyzstan is shutting down its supply base for America, so if the Khyber pass is choked off—as seems to be the case—land supplies can come in only through Russia. I do not wish to make comments about Russia in this debate, but putting NATO and America at the mercy of Mr. Putin does not seem strategically wise, so we need to think in a different way. The player that we have to bring in is India.
	So far this century, we have sent more than £1 billion to India in development aid, yet India is rich enough to plant its flag on the moon and, as has been described, to be a nuclear-armed power. It is spending up to a reported $1 billion in its own development programme in Afghanistan. Thus, Pakistan feels encircled. There are 500,000 Indian troops in Kashmir and 70,000 Kashmiris have died since the Indian army moved in nearly 20 years ago—far more than all those killed in the middle east. The bulk of the Pakistani military has to focus on that. A country cannot have 500,000 troops actively engaged in training and manoeuvres on its frontier and not take appropriate precautions—there is no example in history of that happening. So we have to say to India that it should de-escalate a bitterly emotional dispute.
	Former President Musharraf said that the line of control should be treated as a de facto frontier, and I invite the two Front-Bench teams not to snipe over the question of who raises the issue of Kashmir. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary was right to repeat the then Senator Obama's absolute hyphenation between Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. To get things going, we have to discuss the Kashmiri issue. When my right hon. Friend came back, he was trashed in  The Daily Telegraph and the  Daily Mail—all those papers that just seek to score cheap political points. Let the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) have the guts to say that Kashmir, India and Pakistan need to be discussed, and let us stop sniping about that issue.
	While on holiday in India at the new year, I was appalled to read the militaristic language being used against Pakistan, to see maps in Indian papers of Pakistan re-partitioned, to read about serious people discussing a military invasion of Pakistan and to be able to watch a TV show called "Dial Pak for Terror". We have to get the hyphens back in place; India must bear a responsibility and we must make that clear.

Ann Winterton: This debate rightly focuses on both Afghanistan and Pakistan because, although there is an established international border between the two countries, in many remote places it is virtually ignored by local tribes, who move freely back and forth. I propose to concentrate my remarks on Afghanistan and to focus primarily and perhaps rather narrowly on what is needed to promote the creation of wealth. We all applaud efforts to build schools and hospitals and to provide for other social needs, but if wealth is created the country will not have to depend for ever on international aid.
	The security situation in Afghanistan has to be sorted out before the creation of wealth can begin. The military are expected to provide the security, with civilian contractors following up with reconstruction projects, but until the population are convinced that life is better than it was under the old regime, there will continue to be flare-ups—many Afghan men will still have a rifle concealed under their dishdash ready to exploit any situation, and the re-infiltration of Taliban forces will continue to bring about failures in the security situation.
	I would like briefly to pursue two themes: power supply and the road capacity. The Taliban want neither to succeed; they do not want capacity to be enlarged or such facilities to be made more efficient. They would prefer to continue to rely on the heroin trade and the restrictions on society that we in the west find so abhorrent. The Afghan Energy Information Centre tells us that Afghanistan has 18 hydroelectric power plants, with a generating capacity of 263 MW, and 15 thermal plants, which run on imported diesel and generate 88 MW. It says that a further 296 MW is imported from 13 sources in neighbouring countries. Afghanistan has a total capacity of more than 600 MW, although output is estimated to be around 400 MW, and about 20 MW per 1 million people is provided. That is insignificant when compared with UK provision, which is 1,000 MW per 1 million people.
	There is no national grid in Afghanistan because of the security situation, and distribution is limited to businesses and individuals located in the major cities or those close to the sources of power generation. That severely limits Afghanistan's ability to establish wealth-creation projects, although it has tremendous assets such as coal reserves of 400 million tonnes—no doubt destined to fuel China's coal-fired power stations—and gas, oil, copper, iron ore and many other minerals. In addition, it has the ability to grow crops in its rural areas which, if storage areas and transport facilities were developed, could be exported to the west or elsewhere.
	The construction and maintenance of much-needed roads appears to be a hotch-potch international affair with very mixed results. India, for example, has just completed a 135 mile road linking the province of Nimroz to the Iranian port of Chabahar, thereby opening up a new trade route. That has attracted some sniping from Pakistan, which will lose its trade monopoly and is probably worried about its rival's growing influence in Afghanistan.
	In late 2001, approximately 16 per cent. of Afghanistan's roads were paved, compared with more than 80 per cent. in neighbouring Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. The percentage of paved roads has now increased to 29 per cent. and they have the advantage of being faster for communication, security and the movement of goods. It is also more difficult for insurgents to plant mines and IEDs in roads than in dirt tracks, but maintenance is a continual problem, especially in the mountain areas where damage is caused by the melting of the winter snows.
	The Afghan Government and the USA and other donors consider road construction to be a top development priority and almost 20 per cent. of the US Agency for International Development's $5.9 billion assistance to Afghanistan has been for roads. However, detailed information on this subject has been difficult to obtain, particularly on provincial and rural roads.

Denis MacShane: Can the hon. Lady confirm that 80 per cent. of US aid is actually spent in the US, paying American salaries and buying American goods, not in Afghanistan itself? The money would be best spent sur place in Afghanistan.

Ann Winterton: That is a good point and I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman is right.
	One way to secure a dramatic improvement in road building and power distribution could be achieved by putting the military in charge. It would need to be given the tools and finance to get on with the job, with the transfer of money from other Department's budgets if necessary. If that is not done, it is the Army that will suffer in the long run as it is placed in an impossible "no win" situation. Reconstruction of the infrastructure is very slow—over the past two years the Royal Engineers have repaired, reconstructed or built just 25 miles of road.
	There is also a military advantage to such a strategy. At present, members of the Taliban choose their ground and can evaporate and re-emerge at will. They are present everywhere, but are indistinguishable from the local population. Afghanistan is far too large and complex a country for the Taliban to be destroyed by the military alone, but the one thing that the Taliban could not tolerate is for infrastructure improvements to win support from the people.
	A good road network would bring in its wake prosperity, thereby generating income for social projects. With the military in charge of the road-building programme the Taliban would be identified, tied down and drawn into an area where ISAF and Afghan forces could take them on, knowing full well when to expect them. The co-operation of local people is essential if we are to succeed in Afghanistan, and there is no better way to ensure that that is achieved than by improving prospects, in both security and potential prosperity.
	Although progress is undoubtedly being made, it is far too slow and sporadic. The British Army in Helmand province, by changing its tactics and strategy, could make a lasting and dramatic improvement in the lives of the people of Afghanistan that would augur well for eventual peace.

Bernard Jenkin: Let me start by protesting at the absurd shortness of the debate, which is totally inadequate even for the sprinkling of Members present. Why are so few people here? It is because so few people will get the opportunity to speak. I blue-pencilled my speech to fit it into the time available, and my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Mr. Holloway) who has spent days working on his speech, drawing on his enormous experience, will be reduced to a few scraps. It is intolerable and I hope that the Government will take that to heart and give the House more time to discuss these vital issues.
	I agree with much of what has been said and, most worrying, I find myself agreeing with those who are most doom-laden. Our soldiers continue to win battles against the Taliban in Helmand but the politicians in Afghanistan and the west seem incapable of taking advantage of the time and space won by the blood of our brave troops.
	The story is the same across Afghanistan. We went to Afghanistan, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) pointed out, solely with the objective of toppling the regime that sheltered al-Qaeda. However, we have finished up nation building.
	Our problems in Helmand are a microcosm of the wider difficulties that the international security assistance force is experiencing: lack of military and civil capacity, a vacuum of governance, overstretch and a complete lack of strategic direction. I met a senior non-commissioned officer who was back from Afghanistan just before Christmas, and he told me, "We are there to help them but they just don't want to be helped." That reinforces the central message of James Fergusson's excellent book, "A Million Bullets", which is that much of what we have found ourselves doing in Afghanistan seems to have been counter-productive.
	Our armed forces are brilliant and brave, but their tactical successes seem to contribute little towards strategic success. They merely stir up a hornets' nest. Lord Ashdown went even further in a remarkable interview on the "Today" programme on 24 January. It pains me to repeat him, but he said:
	"I fear...we are now wasting the lives of our young men and women".
	That is a serious charge to bear for us as politicians responsible for the situation.
	We would do well to recall the greatest Chinese military thinker, Sun Tzu, who said
	"strategy without tactics is the slowest way to victory"
	but
	"tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat".
	I agree entirely with the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane), who has unfortunately absented himself from the Chamber, that the lack of strategy is our biggest problem. The hesitancy of the Foreign Secretary, perhaps in an attempt to seem reasonable and open-minded, conveys a lack of confidence that I have also picked up on in private meetings in the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence and from our military commanders.
	We have a campaign plan but we have no overall plan to win the war, as pointed out by Professor Hew Strachan recently at the Royal United Services Institute. NATO is operating the 21st-century equivalent of the Schlieffen plan at the start of the first world war, when railway timetables behind the German front lines became the driving factor of German military policy. With a new US President, it is time to say these hard things in the hope that a coherent strategy will emerge.
	Lord Ashdown suggests that three essentials are required alongside additional military and aid capacity: an international plan, signed up to by everybody; proper international co-ordination expressed with a single voice; and a regional construct—a treaty—to involve Afghanistan's neighbours, including Iran, that is underpinned by the world powers, including China. Let us hope that Richard Holbrooke's appointment heralds that new single voice, but reinforces another lesson. The UN does not and cannot successfully prosecute wars. Wars need leadership of the kind that, in this case, only the United States can provide. If some nations are not prepared to accept that, it would be almost more helpful if they left the field altogether instead of insisting on overcomplicated command chains and caveats that preoccupy commanders with process instead of outcomes.
	If we Europeans want a say in US strategy, we must commit the European forces that can make a real difference. Sadly for the British, our armed forces are so overstretched and run-down that we have limited additional military capacity to offer just as the new President is looking to America's allies to prove themselves. We are losing influence in Washington and at US central command in Tampa, Florida, and we have only ourselves to blame. That is more than just bad for the UK; it threatens our ultimate success. With our history and blood ties in the region, particularly in Pakistan, we are uniquely placed to be effective and proactive.
	It is true that Pakistan is vital to success in Afghanistan, but that misses the real point. In the long term, Pakistan is far more significant strategically than Afghanistan. We should be devoting far more to our excellent mission in Pakistan and committing far more military resources to helping the Pakistani army.
	Military diplomacy was meant to be a big thing in the 1998 strategic defence review, but the Government keep cutting the numbers of defence and military attaches in our embassies. We have a good but tiny military-to-military relationship with the Pakistan. Given the scale of the potential strategic threat of terrorism, and the disastrous possibility that a Government armed with nuclear weapons might fall into the hands of extremists, why on earth is military diplomacy not being addressed with far more urgency?
	We have spent billions of pounds in Afghanistan, perhaps not very effectively. A few hundred million more spent in Pakistan would be of far greater strategic benefit. We should be helping to reform and modernise the Pakistani military to give the army the self-confidence to conduct modern and sophisticated counter-insurgency campaigns, to divert it from its hopeless preoccupation with India, and to help it integrate into a stable Pakistani democratic settlement. We would also be tackling the roots of the insurgency in Afghanistan; at present we are treating the symptoms and not the cause.

John Horam: I profoundly agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) said about the importance of Pakistan. We should not forget that it is the sixth most populous country in the world, with 170 million people, or that it is a nuclear power.
	One warning that I would make about putting Afghanistan together with Pakistan in this debate is that we must not prejudice improvement in Pakistan by our actions in Afghanistan. It is that important.
	Even so, there are some grounds for optimism about the present situation. First, we have a new President in America. I voted against the Iraq war because I felt that America took its eye off the ball in Afghanistan between 2000 and 2003, and we are paying a very heavy price for that neglect.
	Secondly, we have better people in charge now. General Petraeus has more confidence than some of his predecessors and did a good job in Iraq. I think that he is the right person to manage these matters, given his experience in an equally difficult part of the world.
	Thirdly, it is clear that there is a new emphasis in Pakistan on the importance of relations with Afghanistan. President Zardari, for example, had President Karzai with him during his inaugural procedures, and that was a good sign. Moreover, the Pakistani Parliament had a long and very sensible discussion last October about negotiations in Afghanistan, and that is a very good sign indeed.
	As has been said, however, the situation on the ground is dire. The Joint Defence and Foreign Affairs Committee recently heard evidence from Lieutenant-General Wall. Several Opposition Members were present, and the hon. Member for Barnsley, Central (Mr. Illsley) said that we had been told in New York that only one of the 13 provinces in Helmand was now under control. Lieutenant-General Wall agreed and said that that was a fair assessment. In his speech today, the Foreign Secretary insisted that far more provinces were under control, but it is clear that the situation is fluctuating and I do not believe that the present assessment is correct. It is worrying that Lieutenant-General Wall should have made those comments.
	The situation on the ground in Afghanistan is dire and, as various contributors to this short debate have said, we need a radical adjustment of our strategy. In particular, greater emphasis needs to be placed on political dialogue with the Taliban and the Pashtun. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Mr. Holloway), if he gets called to speak, will elaborate on those matters, which I have discussed with him over the past few years. I agree with his basic proposition that we must negotiate sensibly with those elements of the Taliban and the Pashtun who will respond. I appreciate that it is very difficult to decide who to negotiate with and what they want, but none the less I think that that is inevitable.
	Fourthly, as Adam Roberts—an Oxford professor and noted authority on the issue—pointed out in evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee, which will visit Afghanistan in April:
	"One informed and persuasive critique of the approach to counter-insurgency used in Afghanistan since 2003 suggests that its emphasis on extending the reach of central government is precisely the wrong strategy: its authors, specialists in the region, argue instead for a rural security presence that has been largely lacking."
	In other words, there is some doubt about whether for ever strengthening the central Government's military force is the right thing to do.
	Clearly, Pakistan has to make a much bigger effort to deal with the problems. As has been said, the border more or less does not exist as far as the Pashtuns are concerned. As was pointed out by the shadow Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), in the FATA—the federally administered tribal areas of Pakistan—female literacy is at 3 per cent., which is appalling. Unemployment is at 80 per cent. Are we surprised that those people are ready to be radicalised by the Taliban? There, too, a major effort has to be made to get the show on the road, so I hope that in future we can have longer debates on the subject. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for North Essex that the allocation of three hours for a debate on Pakistan and Afghanistan is lamentable.
	I hope that we can have debates of a decent length on the issue, particularly, as the shadow Foreign Secretary says, when there are major, or even significant, changes to the UK Government's strategy, as there have been from time to time. I hope that there will be a radical change in strategy, but I believe that we should be there in Afghanistan, for the reasons that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) so admirably set out.

Adam Holloway: Yesterday, I saw a friend who had been tracking the Afghan Taliban in Pakistan—he was listening to somebody with a Yorkshire accent trying to speak Arabic into a hand-held radio. What can we do? We cannot do very much on our own, but I suggest that Britain and our allies declare a new war: a war on radicalisation. We should seek to protect our people by cutting out this cancer, rather than by suppressing the symptoms—that is, by dropping bombs on it from 20,000 ft, thereby distributing the cells all over the world.
	The new American President has a choice. He can either be a pragmatist or reinforce failure. Failure might look something like this: the Americans send another 30,000 troops, hot-foot from Iraq, in the absence of a political settlement. They then think that the answer is to continue to "clear, hold and build" among a civilian population to whom foreign troops are, in large part, the problem. In that scenario, President Karzai stays in office until his term runs out in May, but limps on with his corrupt narco-clique until elections at some unspecified time in the future. As we know, Karzai remains a major barrier to meaningful reconciliation. Of course it was he who chucked out the utterly irreplaceable Michael Semple.
	Meanwhile, we would muddle on. We would shrug and continue to utter expressions such as "We are where we are," "It's just about fine-tuning the comprehensive approach," and "Just a few more troops." Pakistan would continue to bomb and disperse its population, and continue to lose large chunks of its territory. Sometime thereafter, we could guarantee a more or less irretrievable situation.
	On the other hand, the US President might be a bit more pragmatic. In fairness, some people in our Government may at last have understood the gravity of the matter. What might be the ingredients of a success that would allow us to avoid a second strategic failure? First, we have to understand that Bonn was a conference of the victors. Large parts of the Afghan political landscape were left out of it. Whether we like it or not, Hizb-e-Islami and as many elements as possible of the Taliban have to be brought back into the political process. The Taliban are not a single, coherent movement. In large part, they are the ordinary people of the Pashtun belt. Al-Qaeda is not the same as the Taliban. Frankly, I do not think that AQ needs Afghanistan anymore. It is now in plenty of other places, including our cities.
	Like it or not, the great majority of Afghan and Pakistani tribal inhabitants are deeply traditional people. They want a very light touch from central Government; that system has worked for centuries.
	In other words, what we need now is an Afghan solution—obviously, though, one that protects the strategic interests of the western countries. Of course, it is a hell of a lot easier to say that than to do it, but a couple of weeks ago in Dubai in the Art Boutique Apartment hotel a remarkable meeting took place—you are hearing it here first—between elements of the Taliban and representatives of all the major political parties, including that represented by Gulbuddin Hikmetyar. They were there to discuss the elements of a grand conference, which would do three things. It would correct the imbalance of the Bonn agreement, helping to bring the Taliban back into politics, it would agree to an interim Government to replace Karzai at the end of his term in May, and it would agree a programme for the withdrawal of foreign troops over many years.
	Elements of the Taliban have signed up to those three things as the basis for a further meeting in a few weeks. The driving force behind the initiative, Mr. Jarir, is right now getting on a plane at Heathrow to go back to Dubai. He cannot go back to Kabul because Karzai has threatened to arrest him. The initiative, like many others before it, is imperfect, but it is huge in the sense that Afghan political parties are getting together, talking about bringing the enemy back in, and also talking about an agreed withdrawal of NATO troops.
	Secondly, such a political settlement would allow resources to be concentrated in the Pashtun belt and Pakistan's tribal areas. It will never be perfect, but light government would be working there with the international community to bring security, justice and the rule of law and to develop government institutions that serve the people meaningfully. This would be an enormous rescue plan, and we would have to be prepared to spend gigantic sums of money. We would have to reduce dramatically the tension between India and Pakistan. Remember that the Pakistanis see everything through the prism of Kashmir. We would then be in a position to allow the Pakistani military, which is now in tanks facing India, to focus on counter-insurgency and tribal engagement. It would be extremely helpful if the US Administration were engaged with Iran.
	The plan would have the effect of freeing up our military resources, which are at present fixed in locations holding geography, rather than doing what they should be doing—defeating networks. None of that can happen without this Afghan solution at last, which would have to be supported by a clear international plan, a strategy and a single voice, which the military call unity of command, unity of purpose. It is there in the manual for winning a counter-insurgency operation. Without that, or some sort of significant rebalancing of our efforts, the problem will only get worse. At some point, that will directly affect our population. I want to win this.
	In 1898 Major Fitzgerald Wintour, the grandfather of a distinguished managing director of my local borough council, asked:
	"Is the frontier of British India strengthened by these outposts? There are many who deny it. Is it wise to lock up these numerous detachments in these isolated positions, cut off from one another in wild and mountainous districts, surrounded by lawless tribes? I think they all acknowledge that our policy should be to make friends with the tribes."
	The allies need to wake up and try to rediscover the pragmatism that we have lost in the past eight years in the wreckage of the ideologues.

Julian Lewis: I am particularly grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Mr. Holloway) not only for the breadth and depth of the speech that he has just made, but for lining up exactly what I wish to begin with, which is a word or two about counter-insurgency in general.
	I have a mantra, which is that there are four elements to a counter-insurgency campaign. Some of them are more familiar than others. The first three are very familiar—to identify, to isolate and to neutralise—but the fourth element is to negotiate. That is what my hon. Friend was referring to.
	However, negotiation cannot be carried out at every stage of a counter-insurgency process. During an insurgency's early stages, when the insurgents think that they are on course for victory, negotiation is not an option. The time for that comes either when the insurgents are in retreat, or when a stalemate exists—that is, when the insurgents cannot achieve their aims and the counter-insurgents cannot totally eliminate the insurgents.
	At this point, I must pay tribute to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), who focused the House's attention on the central point of our war aim in Afghanistan. It is not a great, positive aim, but a negative one: to prevent Afghanistan from being used in future to host what has shown itself to be not some sort of patriotic, anti-colonial, nationalist organisation, but one engaged in an ideological crusade worldwide.

Roberta Blackman-Woods: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that, over time and as part of the aim of deterring the Taliban from harbouring terrorists, we need to build the Afghan state and capacity to provide services, job opportunities and infrastructure?

Julian Lewis: I partly accept the hon. Lady's point. What we need to do is help the Afghan state to build up a workable life for itself. However, we must not fool ourselves into thinking that that will involve a carbon copy or mirror image of the sort of lifestyle that it has taken us in our modern societies hundreds of years to develop.

Mohammad Sarwar: indicated assent.

Julian Lewis: I am glad to see some assent to that point on the Labour Benches.

Paul Flynn: Part of the aim was to destroy al-Qaeda's safe place from which to organise terrorism. We have not been successful: that safe base continues, either on the borders or in Pakistan itself. Where is the threat of Taliban action in Britain? Is there any evidence that the organisation is planning terrorism here?

Julian Lewis: The hon. Gentleman is confusing my argument, which he has perhaps not fully grasped. I am talking not about the Taliban in this connection, but about al-Qaeda. The whole point about how insurgencies end with a negotiated settlement is that our war aim should be to demonstrate to everyone with influence in Afghanistan—including the Taliban—that they are on to a loser when they give house room to an organisation such as al-Qaeda, which certainly has aims of causing mayhem in our own societies. The concept of negotiation should come into play precisely when we have shown the Taliban that they are at best in a military stalemate.
	I will lay a large wager that the people, groups, sects and tribes who make up Taliban forces will be as fissiparous as any other insurgency movement. There will be those among them who will be willing to do deals, compromise and realise that they made a terrible strategic mistake when they accommodated al-Qaeda; others among them will be diehards who say that they will never do a deal. Our job must be to show the more pragmatic among the insurgents that they made a strategic error, which they can rectify by isolating militants and giving no house room to al-Qaeda.
	Although the hon. Gentleman rightly says that al-Qaeda is now to be found in other parts of the world, the NATO mission in Afghanistan, if it is to succeed, should have as one of its aims showing other countries that they should think long and hard before emulating the mistake of the Taliban and giving house room to al-Qaeda so that it can launch its attacks against the west.

Mohammad Sarwar: There is an unfortunate perception among the people of Pakistan about the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. It is important that the leadership of Pakistan tells the people of Pakistan that the Taliban are killing Muslims and non-Muslims and bombing girls' schools in Pakistan. This is a war that it is essential to win for the sake of the integrity and prosperity of the people of Pakistan.

Julian Lewis: I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. He leads me to the next stage of my argument, which is to do with the ideological war that needs to be articulated.

Paul Flynn: The logic of what the hon. Gentleman is saying is that if we now discovered that al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden had a base in Pakistan, we should invade Pakistan. I am sure that that is not what he means to say, but that is the logic behind it. Is it not a terrible mistake to put all these groups—al-Qaeda, the Taliban, the insurgency in Iraq, North Korea and other countries—together as one group, as terrorists, and talk about a war on terrorists? Surely we have got past that nonsense.

Julian Lewis: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that not all the groups with which we have been militarily engaged are part of a single organisation, but the ones that belong to al-Qaeda are part of a single organisation, and our job should be to show the other groups that they should have nothing to do with AQ.
	Let me quote from a report in  The Daily Telegraph of 10 January about one of the drone attacks that the hon. Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. Sarwar) condemned. However, this was one of the more productive drone attacks. The report reads:
	"The head of al-Qa'ida in Pakistan and one of his senior henchmen have been killed in an American air strike, according to intelligence sources. Usama al-Kini and his aide, Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan, both Kenyan nationals, are believed to have been killed by a missile fired by a 'predator drone' in south Waziristan, a Taliban stronghold close to the Afghan border.
	The men are believed to have been involved in the bombing of the Marriott in Islamabad last year, in which 55 people were killed when suicide attackers drove a truck bomb into the security gates. They were also suspected of planning a failed assassination attempt on the late Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan, shortly after she returned from exile in 2007.
	They were indicted in the US for their role in the 1998 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and were believed to have played a key role in training recruits to carry out terrorist attacks in Britain and Europe."
	I want to impress on the House the fact that we are dealing with two very different types of enemy. One group is a declared enemy of everything that we stand for. It comprises people such as those in that report, who were from Kenya and yet, strangely enough, ended up in Waziristan. They do these things not because NATO responded to the attacks in America by invading Afghanistan, from which the organisers of the attacks had been operating, but because they have declared holy war on our way of life. The other, wider group—the enemies about whom we have to be concerned—are people who we have a lot of potential for working with if we can show them that dealing with al-Qaeda is ingesting a form of poison into their own lives and societies.
	I say frankly to the hon. Member for Newport, West (Paul Flynn) that if al-Qaeda is expelled from one country after another, then takes root in a third, and then shows every sign, as it almost certainly would, of continuing to launch attacks against the west, then yes, we would have to work with that third country to cut them out, and if the third country were not prepared to work with us to do that, we would have to cut them out anyway—unless he is proposing that western countries simply sit back as terrorist outrages are committed in the centres of their cities.
	I have spent enough time on the theory, so I would like to say a few words about the debate. When the Foreign Secretary said that he would not be here at the end, he gave the excellent excuse that he is going to have talks with General Petraeus. If those talks are going to be about a possible increase in the British troop commitment to Afghanistan, I would like the Minister to answer a specific question. If he answers nothing else that I say from this Dispatch Box today, I would like him to answer this question: how will any extra troops that are sent to Afghanistan, if that is agreed, be funded? Will they be funded in-year from the Treasury reserve budget, or will they be funded in such a way that the money can be clawed back from the central Ministry of Defence budget? I am sorry to inject a rather banal, cost-and-effect, penny-pinching approach to this debate, but the Minister will be as aware as anyone else that, at the moment, however well our armed forces are doing in theatre, the chiefs of the armed forces are at each others' throats in a civil war of their own over inadequate defence resources. We know that one service is attacking another service's prime projects and reciprocation is not likely to be delayed for long.
	We have been fighting two medium-sized conflicts on a peacetime defence budget—now it is going down to one. I have said before from this Dispatch Box, and I make no apology for saying it again, that Prime Minister Tony Blair gave the game away when he said that throughout the decade that new Labour had been in power, defence spending had remained roughly constant at 2.5 per cent. of GDP, and added the fateful words:
	"if we add in the extra funding for Iraq and Afghanistan."
	Whenever we talk about Treasury reserves and so on, when we lump everything together, we find that we have been fighting two conflicts on a peacetime defence budget, and now the services are seriously talking about having to abandon one of the strategic roles of the armed forces in peacetime—which is to insure against conflict with another state—if we are to go on fighting these counter-insurgency campaigns, even at the present level. That is totally unacceptable, so we must have an assurance from the Government that any extra cost arising from further deployment to Afghanistan will be paid for by extra money. Otherwise, it cannot be contemplated.

Denis MacShane: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Julian Lewis: I am sorry, but my time is nearly up.

Denis MacShane: rose—

Julian Lewis: Very well.

Denis MacShane: Is this now official Conservative policy? We need to know. The hon. Gentleman is talking about a huge amount of money.

Julian Lewis: I have no problem with that at all; I have talked about it before as well. I have been challenged about the matter before, I am asked the same question every time and I always give the same answer: the official Conservative policy on defence is that we will fully fund our defence commitments. That means increasing the money for defence, reducing the commitments, or doing something in between the two. If the Government are proposing to increase their commitment, they have got to find the extra funding for it. They cannot do it at the expense of the core MOD budget.
	I feel that I have neglected all the people who have contributed to the debate, so I shall try to make amends very briefly. I enjoyed the speech of the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), and I am only sorry that no other Liberal Democrat MP was present to hear her make it. My hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Sir Peter Tapsell) has made a consistent case about the follies of getting involved in Afghanistan, but his point was anticipated neatly by my right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary when he pointed out that unlike the Russians—and for that matter, unlike the British in the past—we are not out to conquer Afghanistan. We are out to work with people and groups in Afghanistan to enable them to deal with terrorist elements there. The reason why our casualties, grievous as they are, have come nowhere near the sort of levels incurred by the Russians, is precisely that difference. They were out to conquer and we are not.
	My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea made a masterly speech, and I would sum it up as follows, "We don't mind who runs Afghanistan, as long as they do not give a base to al-Qaeda." There is a certain amount of credibility on the line here, both for NATO generally and for its individual component nations. For NATO generally, that is because it responded when one of its countries came under attack, and because it has invested a lot in the campaign. However, not all NATO countries have invested anything like the same amount, and that needs to be considered. I welcome moves in NATO to start examining how interventions are funded, and I believe it is moving in the right direction with the suggestion that if some countries are not so willing to undertake the fighting, they should be more willing to put money into a central pot to help finance those of us that are.
	We have heard a number of dissenting voices, but at the end of it all there are only two ways of leaving Afghanistan. One is to capitulate, and basically to say, "It's okay. You can house international terrorist organisations. They can launch attacks on our major cities and we will not respond." The other is to identify the main elements in the country—not just the ones that we regard as the most democratic but the real power brokers—and say, "Look here, we don't want to run your country, but we cannot tolerate a situation in which you allow splinter groups of foreigners to attack us, so we want to negotiate a deal."
	As most insurgencies do end in a negotiated deal, I close by reminding the House of one fact: when one negotiates a deal, one must negotiate from a position of at least equal strength to that of one's opponent. We might not be able to win militarily—we never thought we would—but we are certainly capable of ensuring that our opponents cannot defeat us. When they realise that, the basis for a deal will be available and the outcome will be the isolation and removal for good of the cancer of al-Qaeda.

Quentin Davies: I think that everybody would agree that this has been an extremely lively debate, in which people have spoken straight from the heart and from many different perspectives. That is just what such debates should be about. The Government will take on board and reflect on all the points that have been made from all those perspectives.
	I shall briefly address the various contributions. I start with the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), whose attitude was generally supportive of what the Government have been trying to do in Afghanistan and Pakistan. We are grateful for that and appreciate it. Whichever Government happen to be in power, our foreign policy will always be more effective around the world if there is an element of bipartisanship. We recognise that and are grateful for it when it occurs.
	The right hon. Gentleman complained that the Government had not kept Parliament well enough informed about Afghanistan or reported to Parliament at regular intervals. Frankly, I was a bit surprised to hear that complaint. The Government gave an extraordinarily full response to the report of the Foreign Affairs Committee, whose Chairman is no longer in his place, on 23 January, which is not very long ago. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman has had a chance to read it yet, but I am very happy to pass it across to him if he has not had the opportunity to get his own copy. When he reads it, I hope that he will find that his complaint is not quite as well founded as he first thought.

Bernard Jenkin: I cannot believe that the Minister really thinks that a sanitised response to a Select Committee report—we all know what responses to Select Committee reports are like—is a substitute for regular parliamentary statements, which mean that Ministers can be cross-examined by the House. That is the least that we ask for. It is unprecedented that a military campaign should be in progress and statements given so rarely.

Quentin Davies: I cannot accept that remark, because Select Committees are not marginal; they are a central part of the institution of this place. The Government's responses to their reports should be in the mainstream of the whole mechanism of accountability on which a successful legislature depends. The response to the Foreign Affairs Committee report is full and detailed, and I believe that if the hon. Gentleman reads it, he will see that his criticisms are not well founded.

Adam Holloway: Will the Minister give way?

Quentin Davies: I will, but I want to answer some of the questions that have been put to me, and I will not be able to do so if I take too many interventions.

Adam Holloway: I said in my speech that I thought that some members of the Government had finally got the message. The conversation that the Foreign Secretary is having now with General Petraeus is probably much more panicked than what comes through in a Select Committee report.

Quentin Davies: Perhaps I will be briefed in due time about what is happening at the moment. However, I do not have extra-sensory perception, so I cannot tell the hon. Gentleman the details of a conversation that is currently taking place elsewhere.
	The right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks asked me several questions, including how many US troops would be deployed in Afghanistan, in Regional Command South and in Helmand, and what the command structure would be if there were an increase in the American commitment. All those questions are relevant and important, but of course we do not know the answers yet. We have not received any concrete propositions from the new American Administration.
	It would be invidious and—I know the right hon. Gentleman agrees—contrary to the basic principles of diplomacy to give contingent answers to questions that have not yet been asked by an ally. He will simply have to be patient, and we will see whether any requests are made to us and, if so, how we respond. If there are major, significant changes in our policy or stance on any matter, we will make a statement before the House, first off, as a priority.

Adam Holloway: rose—

Quentin Davies: I will give way again to the hon. Gentleman, but it may be for the last time.

Adam Holloway: Forgive me, but the Under-Secretary's comments do not square with the fact that groups of our officers at Permanent Joint Headquarters are holding meetings with the Americans to discuss force numbers in Helmand.

Quentin Davies: They square entirely. Conversations are going on about all sorts of things at all times with our allies—and so they should. I repeat that we have had no formal, concrete or specific requests or recommendations, and I speak advisedly because I know that I am speaking on the record.
	The right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks asked about helicopters in Afghanistan. Strangely, he said that was not so interested in helicopter hours or availability, he simply wanted more machines. Helicopter hours and helicopters with the right sort of capability, whether lift or ground support, at the right time—available as rapidly as possible to commanders on the spot—are important. We have made a considerable increase—60 per cent.—from the beginning of 2007 to the end of last year in the availability of helicopter time to our forces in Afghanistan. This year, there will also be a substantial increase—25 or 30 per cent.—including some Merlins, which he mentioned. We are also re-engining several Lynxes to enable them to operate on a 24-hour-day, seven-day-week, 365-day-year basis. I may have contributed modestly to that, and I set much store by it. That would constitute a considerable increase in our capacity. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman recognises that we have addressed the issue.
	My right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) spoke a little about Afghanistan and rather more about Pakistan. He acknowledged that the emancipation of women in all areas that ISAF controls or that are under our influence has been one of the great, positive changes in Afghanistan since ISAF intervention. The main thrust of his speech was about Pakistan, a country with which he is obviously familiar. He made the point that many other hon. Members made: that Afghanistan cannot easily be disentangled from Pakistan, which cannot easily be disentangled from relations with India, which cannot easily be disentangled from the problem of Kashmir. We all accept that.
	We feel some sympathy for the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), who has been abandoned, not only by the defence and foreign affairs spokesmen of her party, but by all her colleagues in her parliamentary party. None the less, she delivered a well-informed and lucid speech to which we enjoyed listening. She made some significant points on behalf of her party, including saying that more troops may be necessary in Afghanistan. She put it in the subjunctive, but it was an important point. She also said that United Kingdom should be prepared to make an additional small contribution. I note the word "small". In that respect, the Liberal Democrats seem rather more decisive than Conservative Members, who do not express themselves so clearly on the matter. One sometimes suspects that—to use the term that was used yesterday rather memorably—there is a little bit of opportunism in the air.  [ Laughter. ] That will probably be my last party political swipe of the evening.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. Sarwar) spoke with great knowledge about the history of United States-Pakistan relations. Obviously he knows a lot about the background and a lot about Pakistan's history. I was glad to hear that he had led a delegation of colleagues to Pakistan, because it is extremely important that we maintain such contacts. As he said, we do not have just a long-standing historical relationship with Pakistan, which goes back to what the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Sir Peter Tapsell) calls the Raj, or a large number of citizens here whose family origins are in that country. We do not want our links to be just historical; we want them to continue—to be burnished and kept alive. Such initiatives are extremely welcome and valuable.
	Now I come to the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle. The House always enjoys his contributions. I do not think that I have ever heard one without learning some new historical fact, and today's was about Lord Salisbury telling the viceroy of India that he needed to use a larger-scale map, which is certainly a memorable phrase. The hon. Gentleman always enlightens the House, but he is always a pessimist about any British involvement anywhere. He said—I hope that I noted down his words correctly—that we want to "get out of Afghanistan altogether". I do not agree with that, for reasons that I will come to in my concluding remarks. However, the House will have greatly appreciated his excellent speech.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Paul Flynn) was also a pessimist. In fact, his analysis and predictions were extremely close to those of the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle, although I do not imagine that they agree on many things in the House. My hon. Friend said one thing that I have to dispute, which is that Kandahar is almost entirely in the hands of the Taliban. I was in Kandahar last month and I can testify that that is not correct.
	The right hon. and learned Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) made an extremely well-informed speech, as one would expect. He started by saying that our involvement in Afghanistan is very different from the Soviet occupation and cannot be compared to it, and that we went in basically to defend our essential interests. I totally agree and shall say a few words about that. Indeed, there was much in his speech with which I quite agreed.
	The right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane)—

Simon Burns: He is a Friend of yours.

Quentin Davies: I beg your pardon, Mr. Deputy Speaker. My right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham—I can fairly say that he is a friend of mine in every sense of the term—accused the Government of having no sense of a strategy. I think that we do have one, and I hope that I can persuade the House of that.
	The hon. Member for Congleton (Ann Winterton) spoke interestingly about the need for wealth creation. We quite agree that ultimately the solution must lie in wealth creation. I agree with her that stability is an essential prerequisite for wealth creation and that security is an essential prerequisite for stability.
	The hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) again asked for more time for such debates. The House will have listened to that request and no doubt the party managers and business managers will have noted his point. He said that we must persuade our European allies to make more of a contribution to Afghanistan. We have had a number of discussions of that sort. However, I fundamentally disagree with the hon. Gentleman on one point. It is certainly much better to have allies there with caveats than it is to have no allies there at all. It would indeed be very nice if our allies were prepared to reconsider some of the caveats from time to time, but we greatly welcome the valuable contribution that they are making.
	Finally, the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Holloway) put forward what I might call the Holloway plan. I do not agree with it, but we will take it on board as one of the various suggestions that have been made about how we ought to proceed.
	The hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) spoke a lot of sense, as he normally does, but I take his point about inadequate funding of our defence budget with a pinch of salt. Until recently, the Conservative party was not prepared to say that it went along with our defence budget. The Conservatives have made additional commitments, such as on the three battalions, which is quite absurd, but they have not said what they will cut back if they go ahead with that commitment. I can give him an assurance that we always finance our military commitments overseas out of the reserve. We have always done so, and I cannot imagine that we would ever change that policy. I can give him an assurance that we will fund—
	 Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 9(3)).

PETITION
	 — 
	Traffic Management (County Durham)

Roberta Blackman-Woods: I wish to present a petition on behalf of the residents of Brancepeth village in County Durham, and others.
	The petition states:
	The Petition of residents of Brancepeth Village, County Durham, and others,
	Declares that the residents of Brancepeth Village have for many years requested a 30 miles per hour speed limit to be imposed on the A690 road through Brancepeth; further declares that although the speed limit has been reduced to 40 mph, lighting has been provided on the dangerous crossroads in the village centre and a 30 mph speed limit is now in place on the Wolsingham Road that crosses the A690, the traffic on the A690 itself continues to pose a threat to life and limb;
	Notes that traffic problems are intensifying in the village for three main reasons: first, the ageing population has to cross the A690 to access village amenities, such as the Village Hall and Church; second, there is a growing number of very young children in the village and young mothers with push chairs report that crossing the A690 is a frightening prospect; and third, now that the recreational area has been brought back into use, there are very many more pedestrians of all ages crossing the main road to avail themselves of this amenity; further notes that without a 30 mph speed limit and accompanying illuminated signs, there is a high risk of further fatalities.
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Secretary of State for Transport to put pressure on the local authorities to impose as soon as possible a 30 mph speed limit on the A690 road through Brancepeth, in accordance with the national traffic policy for rural villages, with accompanying illuminated signs.
	And the Petitioners remain, etc.
	[P000315]

PREJUDICE AND MENTAL HEALTH

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. —(Mr. Frank Roy.)

Charles Walker: It is with great pleasure that I rise to speak in tonight's Adjournment debate on prejudice and mental health. We live in enlightened times. People no longer face persecution because of their sexuality, the colour of their skin or the nature of their physical disability. That is an extremely good thing; it is the mark of a civilised society. However, that enlightenment does not yet extend to how we relate to people with mental illness. There still seems to be a permitted culture—or, if not a permitted culture, a tolerated culture—of prejudice and discrimination towards them.
	It is sad that, over the past 15 years, society's view of the mentally ill has gone backwards. Our level of empathy for people with mental illness has actually deteriorated since 1994, and it is time that society and we in this place addressed that. Like many Members of Parliament, I was extremely privileged and honoured to attend the launch of Time to Change, a group of charities that have come together to try to dispel the stigma attached to mental illness. Society is still not reaching out to the mentally ill. We are still keeping them at arm's length. People with mental illness are afraid to connect with the health services because they are afraid of losing their liberty. Perhaps they are even more afraid, however, of how their friends, neighbours and workmates will respond to them. They face an unwarranted level of prejudice, and that should not be tolerated.
	One of the first things that I did when I became a Member of Parliament was to go to a local charity in my constituency. It was a charity that supports people with mental health problems. I met a number of constituents with schizophrenia and other forms of severe psychosis, and I learned a huge amount in those two hours. It was a hugely informative afternoon.
	One event left me absolutely marked for the rest of my professional and adult life; it was seared into my heart. A carer told me that one of the patients—the service users—wanted to have a word with me in private, and asked whether I would object. I said that I would not at all object, and that I would very much like to have a private conversation with him.
	The gentleman had suffered from schizophrenia for a number of years. He had had very severe schizophrenic events throughout his adult life, but he wanted me to know that he experienced hopes and aspirations, fears and concerns, joy and loathing—all the same emotions as people who do not suffer from mental illness. He wanted me to know that, although he suffered from schizophrenia, he still had hopes, and that there were still things in his life that he wanted to achieve. In essence, he was justifying himself and his illness to me. That was very moving, even though there was no need for it. If he had cancer or heart disease, there would be no reason or expectation for him to justify his illness. I was shocked and saddened that he felt the need to address what he perceived would be my prejudices against him. It was, as I say, a very moving experience, and I learned a lot from him.
	Society reinforces the stigma of the mentally ill. We are guilty of that in this very place. If a Member of Parliament is sectioned for more than six months, they will be removed from the House of Commons and a replacement will be found for the seat; there will necessarily be a by-election. What message does that send out? It is no wonder that not a single serving MP in this place has admitted to having a mental health problem. They are fearful of what will happen to them if they do so. If someone running a company has a breakdown or a psychotic event, they can be removed from the board with no right of return. Again, what message does that send out?
	One of the saddest aspects of the problem is that people who have had an episode of mental illness are banned from serving on juries. I know that the Government are looking further into that. Each year, 9,000 people are disqualified from serving in this country's justice system. The tragedy and the comedy of that, if I may make that connection, is that many of the people disqualified from serving on juries will be leaders in their respective fields. Some, yes, will be captains of industry; some will be leaders in the field of medicine, science or industry.
	In fact, millions of people across our society who—day in, day out—make a huge contribution to it have mental health problems. They may well be people at the top of Government, or at the top of the Opposition parties, who manage mental health problems each and every day in a way that allows them to make a full and thorough contribution to public life. There should be no need for them to hide away or to hide their illness away. If they admitted that they had a mental illness today, they would remain exactly the same people tomorrow and would carry on doing an equally good job. People with mental illness are no more prone than others to fail or to succeed or even perhaps to be happy or sad; they are ordinary people, managing their illness and making a contribution. There is thus a huge job of work for us in this place to do in amending or getting rid of laws to send the message that mental illness is not something that people should be ashamed of and is not a crime.
	I have spoken about mental illness on a number of occasions in this place over the past four years. I have sometimes been critical of coverage by the press. Indeed, I was critical of it three weeks ago. However, I have updated my thinking on this matter. Today I instructed my researcher to look at the  News of the World,  The Sun and the  Daily Mirror over the past six weeks and find some examples of those newspapers taking a prejudicial approach to people with mental illness. I am pleased to say that I could not find one example.
	I am aware that Shift, an organisation that the Government are involved with, has published some guidance, which has been distributed to the media, suggesting ways in which they can report mental illness without driving people who have it further underground. I am also pleased to see that some very senior people in the media—people such as Jon Snow, Alastair Campbell and others—have taken the issue to heart. Alastair Campbell himself has suffered from mental health problems and he is leading the campaign to change how the press report mental illness. Let us remember that people with mental illness are 11 times more likely to be the victim of violent crime. They are the victims.
	This big campaign, Time to Change, is running at the moment. There is a big media campaign and a big advertising campaign. One in four people, we are told, suffers from some form of mental illness in his or her lifetime: depression, anxiety, and conditions that are far worse and far longer-lasting. For many people, a period of mental illness is something that they will work through. They will obtain the necessary support, and they will come out of that bleak and dark period. But we must not let the figure of one in four diminish the fact that for one in 100 people—perhaps one in 50—mental illness is a life sentence. For those with schizophrenia, there is very little hope of a lasting recovery. Their symptoms can be managed; their equilibrium can be maintained through drug therapies; but, in the main, they will not recover from schizophrenia. There was a very good article in  The Times today by Sathnam Sanghera, who wrote about his family's experience of schizophrenia: his father's experience and his sister's experience. As I have said, it is a long-term condition, which will be with them for the rest of their lives.
	As a society, we probably have the greatest problem with schizophrenia and severe psychosis, and the way in which those conditions have been represented. I believe that in the coming years we will tackle people's concerns about depression, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder, but there will be a huge job to be done in breaking down the barriers of concern surrounding schizophrenia, which have been built up for so long by, I am afraid, the media and others through irresponsible headlines.
	This is how difficult I believe it will be. A month ago, I got on to a train at Finsbury Park. I am an enlightened person living in an enlightened age; I understand these things. Yet when someone near me on the train was clearly having a severe turn—psychosis—and was clearly a troubled soul, every sinew in my body demanded that I get up and move. Of course, I had to persuade myself that I was being stupid. This man posed no threat to me; he posed a greater threat to himself, and he was deserving of my compassion and sympathy. Yet I, as someone who claims to understand, still wanted to get up and move. If I find it difficult, others who are not so aware of this illness and the terrible, ravaging effect that it has on the sufferer will find it more difficult—difficult not to get up and move, difficult not to form negative opinions, and difficult not to stereotype sufferers from schizophrenia. So there is a huge job to be done, not just this year and next year but for decades to come.
	Every day, we in this place must ask ourselves whether we are doing enough to address the stigma and prejudice attached to mental illness. If the answer is no, as it often will be, we must do a great deal more. We are a caring and a compassionate society, and we should set the highest expectations for ourselves. No one should be condemned to suffer in silence; no one should feel ashamed of having an illness. We must wrap our arms around those people and hold them close to us, to show them that we care and that we are with them.
	Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to raise this hugely important topic on the Adjournment.

Phil Hope: I congratulate the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker)—as I have done before—on securing the Adjournment debate, and thank him for again using the opportunity to raise the key issue of mental health. He spoke with enormous passion and terrific eloquence. I have heard him speak before on the issue, and our view on it is very much shared across the House.
	I echo what the hon. Gentleman said about us as a society. We like to think that stigma of this kind is a sin of the past: we do not like to think that any sort of discrimination can be endemic in our modern society, or that it can still have—as he made clear—such a profound and negative impact on people's lives. On this and previous occasions, he has done a very good job of pricking that bubble of complacency. As he rightly said, when it comes to mental health, stigma is unfortunately very much alive and well—thriving, in fact—and is something that we need to confront and defeat as a matter of urgency.
	Let me briefly make an observation, because I was interested in the hon. Gentleman's description of how we have made progress on various matters. This might be a crude simplification, but it seems to me that we have made a breakthrough on discrimination in every decade: in the '70s, on gender discrimination; in the '80s, on racism; in the '90s, on homophobia; and in this decade, perhaps on ageism. I am not suggesting that we have totally eradicated discrimination on any of those grounds— obviously there is a lot more that we can do—but we made big leaps forward in those years.
	The stigma attached to mental health is the elephant in the room. Approaching the second decade of the 21st century, we may have mental health services that rank among the best in Europe according to the World Health Organisation, but I agree with the hon. Gentleman that popular attitudes to mental health are well behind the times. He eloquently gave an example of someone he met in his constituency. I was struck by the story of a lady who had suffered from breast cancer, and who said that her friends and colleagues found it much easier to deal with her cancer than with the depression that followed when she went into remission. As a rule, people with a physical illness get flowers, sympathy and support; with mental illness, they are often met with silence and solitude—and sometimes reproach. Moreover, this is just the tip of the iceberg, because stigma and discrimination—in businesses, in the media, in public services and across communities—mean that many people never really escape the legacy of their mental health problems not because of poor health, but because of poor attitudes. Giving people flowers or sympathy is fine, but we must address the harsh reality of disadvantage and social exclusion—problems in finding and keeping work, in securing housing and in education and training. What stigma does is deny people opportunity and hope for a better future; I am thinking of the example the hon. Gentleman gave of the individual in his constituency whom he met after he was first elected.
	Certain groups are more affected than others and suffer a "double discrimination"—this came up in a debate we had in the House a few weeks ago. Some black and minority ethnic groups have high rates of severe mental illness as well as facing greater inequality in terms of their access to, and experience of, mental health services. That must change. Our five-year action plan, "Delivering race equality in mental health care", aims to address that by showing how services must adapt to offer timely and culturally sensitive care to different cultural groups. We will also put race inequality—and age inequality, which is another key issue—at the heart of the new horizons project, which is the new vision for mental health we are currently developing.
	Having agreed with much of what the hon. Gentleman said, I wish to add that it would be wrong to portray this as a "year zero" moment in tackling this matter, or any other kind of stigma in mental health. Thanks to more than £1.5 billion of further investment in mental health since 2001, the reality is that things are changing: services are improving and experiences are better for people with mental health problems.
	Since the last debate, I have had the pleasure of seeing at first hand how a combination of investment and innovation is changing lives. I visited Newham, and if the hon. Gentleman wants to see some excellent practice I recommend he sees what is happening there, too. It has pioneered new ways of improving access to psychological therapies. I met a young French mother who told me how the service she receives linked her to a whole network of support, including a children's centre and a job club. Her therapist was always available to her, including by text message on her mobile phone, so she always knew somebody was there when a moment arose when she needed support. I spoke to her directly, and it was clear that that support made all the difference. She is now much better and she is receiving help to look for a job—and I am sure she will find one very soon. What was even more encouraging was how the treatment centre I visited linked her with other people who used the centre—and although she has moved on, she still goes there for a cup of tea and a chat when she needs it.
	Indeed, the whole community in Newham is starting to break down barriers. Another group, who had received cognitive behavioural therapy, has volunteered to take leaflets round to local clubs and community venues, letting people know help is available. The hon. Gentleman may not know Newham, so may I tell him that it is one of the most ethnically diverse boroughs in the country? That word-of-mouth support has been key to improving the number of black and Asian people receiving treatment. They can self-refer, walk into that centre and get the benefits from it. That has not led to an avalanche of responses from the worried well, as some people feared. People were coming forward with illnesses as serious and enduring as those referred by doctors, so this approach has opened up services for the black and minority ethnic community in a way that others have not.
	All in all, the visit I made was an inspiring one. The hon. Gentleman described how he was inspired by the people whom he has met and, likewise, I have been inspired by the people whom I met in Newham. The Government are investing £173 million over the next three years to deliver similar programmes around the country, so that what happens in Newham will soon happen everywhere.
	Transforming mental health services is not enough—as the hon. Gentleman said, we must transform attitudes across all public services. Every touch point for people with mental health problems needs to be aware of that and must not hang on to discriminatory attitudes. Our national social inclusion programme and public service agreement No. 16 are focusing minds in public services, bringing together action across central Government and translating it into progress at the local level, particularly on issues associated with settled employment and settled accommodation for individuals.
	As the Minister for the East Midlands—that is another role that I have—I have created a regional sounding board in the east midlands to develop practical action across all the agencies that operate regionally on housing, on jobs and on education and training, so that we can bring those people together to examine what more we need to do. That is particularly important now, when people who are a long way away from the employment market are likely to become further away from it if we do not take action to support them.
	The Government have a raft of smaller initiatives in place that are aimed at offering individual services that confront and do not compound stigma: the Open to All training package for museums and galleries; the "Really Useful Book of Learning and Earning", which has been distributed to carers, jobcentre advisers, colleges and training providers; and the Work Matters advice for occupational therapists, which helps them to obtain the advice and guidance necessary to meet their clients' needs.
	Getting local services right can be a springboard for wider changes across society. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for mentioning Shift, which is funded by the Department of Health and is doing great work to confront prejudice in two key areas: the workplace and the media. It was great to hear what he had to say about the analysis done by his researcher; perhaps we are beginning to have an impact and perhaps some of that work is beginning to have an influence. He is right to say that leading figures in the media who are prepared to stand up and challenge their own industry on all this are important to making progress. The work being done is also contributing to our forthcoming national mental health and employment strategy, to be led by Dame Carol Black, which will be vital to breaking down barriers to employment in all sectors. It would be great if we could work with the media so that instead of taking an unhelpful, sensationalist approach, they could suddenly become the solution to the problem of changing attitudes to mental health.
	That leads me to my final point: the need to create a deeper cultural change across society. The hon. Gentleman and I very much share that aim, which requires political leadership. That is why it is so important that we are having these debates in the House. I know that there is a growing consensus between the political parties and, indeed, between Governments on the issue. I recently attended an international conference on stigma in mental health, where I shared a platform with the hon. Member for Guildford (Anne Milton), who speaks on behalf of the Conservatives, and the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), who speaks on behalf of the Liberal Democrats. No one could have put a cigarette paper between us; we shared the view that we should challenge that stigma.
	I was delighted that the Prime Minister and I attended a cross-party photo opportunity to mark the launch of Time to Change. It has rightly been described as pioneering work. It is a new social marketing programme, rightly led by the third sector—by Mind, Rethink and Mental Health Media—and it is very significant. This is the start of another long journey on which those organisations are going to take us. The fact that the impetus is coming from those organisations will help to garner support in the wider community. We have to reach far deeper into the public's mindset if we are to achieve the outcomes that the hon. Gentleman and I seek.
	An exciting range of activities is planned as part of Time to Change, such as more community-based projects, challenging stigma through social contact and physical activity; training offered to new teachers and doctors on support for people with mental health problems; and even tackling discrimination through test cases in court.
	Our efforts in Westminster must join up with Time to Change to create a social movement for change that involves everyone—politicians, practitioners, journalists, the general public—and, of course, people with mental health problems must be at the helm.
	Stigma is the enemy of fairness and a barrier to progress. As a society, we must stand united against it. I am proud of what we have achieved in mental health services. I am proud of the significant expansion in community-based support for people with mental health problems, and of the praise that the World Health Organisation reserved for our system in its recent report. But stigma threatens those achievements. So we need the same conviction, the same strength and the same focus that helped us to break down past sources of discrimination—which I mentioned earlier—to end this one too. We all want this period to be the one that we will look back on and say, "That was the moment. It was 2009, the start of the second decade of the 21st century—that was when we made the breakthrough. That was when we opened people's eyes and changed their minds about mental health." I know that the hon. Gentleman wants to see that as much as I do. I hope that we can continue to work together to make it happen.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 House adjourned.